The Secret Files of Elliot and Olivia
by S.carlett V.on U.ttenburg
Summary: The case files that brought change to the SVU room. Elliot and Olivia find themselves when forced into vicitimization.
1. Old Shoes

**I'm a new writer and this is my first fanfiction. If you have any advice for me it would be greatly appreciated. Let me know what you think. I've been making rewrites as I go, so if you have a suggestion I'm up for it. So far this has been really fun and I have some different ideas for future chapters. **

**S.V.U.**

Old Shoes

Scene 1: The East River Pier

Elliot's tennis shoes slapped the pavement as he ran full speed towards a man in a black suit. The man was standing next to a rope that was attached to an anchor hanging from an import barge. His left hand was holding a brief case and his right hand was on the rope that would release the anchor into the water. Tied to the bottom of the anchor was a woman completely stripped of all of her clothing, except for a men's white button down shirt. She was screaming and sobbing for help through the tape on her mouth. The man turned to look at Elliot. He was wearing a green apple Halloween mask and appeared to be posing as the faceless businessman. The man stood stock still as he spoke to the quickly approaching detective. "Elliot Stabler. The man of the hour."

Elliot pulled out his firearm and pointed it at the man. "Back away from that rope."

The masked man replied without moving, " We had an agreement Stabler. No firearms. Why don't you throw down your weapon detective, and I'll think about giving you an early Christmas present."

Elliot shouted back, " We had an agreement until you decided to invite a third party to this meeting."

"You can read the fine print all you want Stabler, but I never said this was a private event."

"Let the woman go. You and I can dish this out alone."

"Do you think I'm naïve? I know your game."

"Then why'd you call me here?"

The man answered him with a chuckle in his voice, "I wanted to meet the man who's going sign my last deal." He got shear pleasure from the mental games he played with all of his victims.

Elliot was tired of it all, "I don't make deals with scumbags."

"Yes that's right, you're the good cop. You're going to save the day with your fancy title and your shiny badge. Does that make you feel good about your sad pathetic life?"

"The only thing sad and pathetic on this dock is that mask."

"Oh yes, you're so powerful when you use that tone of voice with me."

Elliot's patience was pressing and he yelled, "What do you want from me?"

"ooo temper, temper. Detective you shouldn't speak with such angst in front a lady. For a woman of her stature she frightens easily. You're my last project Stabler and I needed to sell you the idea. Every good businessman has to sell his product" He then shakes the rope and the anchor starts to move around.

Elliot stepped forward. "Cut the Crap. Back away from the rope or you'll give me no choice but to shoot you."

"I couldn't possibly give you this trophy Stabler. She's much too powerful to let go. Or not let go." He starts to laugh.

Without a beat Elliot shot the man and hit the side of his arm.

The man grunted in pain and fumbled to the side. "That wasn't nice Detective. You shouldn't have done that." The man then flipped open his briefcase and released slime and smoke into Elliot's face. Elliot's eyes were burning and he was becoming dizzy. "AH! You son of a bitch!" He dropped his gun and fell to his knees.

The man walked up to him and looked down at his ratty Reebok tennis shoes, "You know, they're right, you can tell a man by his shoes. See you at our next meeting, Stabler."

Elliot's face turned bright red with anger and he started throwing his arms around trying to find his gun or to get in a punch. The world was spinning and he couldn't see a thing.

The man then unlatched the anchor and disappeared as the woman's screams faded with the splash. Elliot started cursing and trying to wipe the goo from his eyes. He reached for his radio and called for back up.

"This is Stabler. I'm at the East River Pier. I need back up now. Victim is female and tied to an anchor. Suspect is nearby and wearing a black suit and a green mask."

Scene 2: SVU Squad room.

Olivia sat at her desk when Elliot barged into the squad room. His face was goo free but the rest of his person was sodden in the slime.

"How was your jog?" She snapped with her all knowing gaze and her judgmental tone. Elliot was all too fond of that tone. It was a comfortable irritation that he missed when it wasn't around.

"Refreshing." He mumbled as he dumped his gun onto his desk.

"I'm glad you decided to fill us in on your little adventure."

Olivia stood up and looked him up and down. Grabbing a swab from her desk she proceeded to swipe the side of his head for goo evidence.

"If you mean I decided to let a serial killer get away for the 3rd time, then yes, you would be correct." He replied with hostility.

Detective John Munch chimed in from a desk to the left of Olivia. "Looks like you should've called a ghost buster."

"Yeah I'll think of that next time." Elliot jabbed with a hint of anger and sarcasm.

Munch continued, " While you were being examined for spirit feces we started without you. " Munch headed to the bulletin board to go over the bases. "He took is victim from an office building on 22nd st last Monday. The victim was then taken to the east river pier this morning. That's exactly 7 business days from the kidnapping. There he stripped her of her clothing, gagged and anchored her. The victim is Jacklyn Cronkite, head of the Tyboon Corporation. She was rapped and tortured. Objects include possible pipe or metal object and a brillow pad, which we assume he used to rid her of his evidence. Our perp has a real thing for powerful women. Two months ago he murdered the executive manager of the Carlyle Group, NYC's finest headhunters, on the empire state building. Rape pattern was the same. Cause of death was a beheading. And last month he murdered Senator Hilary Clinton's campaign manager. All three women were missing for a week and all three women were brutally raped, tortured, and murdered. This guy has a serious problem with women in the work force. "

Elliot sat heavily on his desk. "So why did he contact me?"

George Huang walked in and joined the debate without missing a beat, "Because he wants an audience and you gave him attention when he needed it the most. Your perp is a man who's been heavily neglected and abused by his mother. He's probably had problems coping with women at work. Some sort of life changing experience has set him off. I'd say he's not the kind of man who's going to stop."

Captain Cragen entered the room furiously and cut Huang off " Elliot, my office now."

Elliot started towards the door, his temper was hot and defensive, "Captain, I had to go without back up. This guy is too smart for games. It would have ruined the whole operation."

Cragen replied, "Oh, so getting an innocent victim murdered and letting the killer swim away was a much better plan. Why don't you explain that to me before I fire you? In my office, now!"

Elliot entered Cragen's office and slammed the door.

"Where's your head Elliot? You're not superman. You need to play with the team or I'm going to have no choice but to let you go."

"Well, when I get a partner who wants to be a part of my team, then maybe I'll start playing the right way." Elliot swallowed hard, wishing he hadn't said the words that just came out of his mouth. He knew he couldn't blame Olivia for keeping her distance.

"What's wrong with you and Olivia?"

Elliot quickly guarded his statement, "Nothing. Captain, I had no idea he had a victim. I thought I was on the right track with him. He's starting to reveal himself to me. This is the first time we've seen him. I thought if I could get him one on one-"

"He would what, shoot you? Elliot that was a rookie stunt you pulled. If you aren't getting along with Olivia then I'll get you a new partner."

Elliot sat down in a chair to the right of Cragen's desk, "No, don't do that. I mean, unless she wants it that way. I just lost my head when I got that call. Dani and I were the ones originally working on it and I don't want to force Olivia to take on a project that isn't hers."

The Captain pulled back his temper and sat in the chair behind his desk," Yes, well Dani isn't here anymore, so you need to use what's available to you. I can't have a killer walk because my detectives can't play by the rules. I'm taking you off of this assignment. You're too involved."

"You can't do that-"

Cragen threw his New York Times in the trash with a thud, "I can do what I damn well please."

"Captain, this guy is only giving us clues because he's chosen me as his audience. If you get rid of me now we could lose everything."

The Captain knew Elliot was right, he just wasn't sure he could trust him. "If I let you continue on this case you have to promise me that you will not work alone. I don't want to see you anywhere without a partner. And don't even think about meeting this guy without back up. I mean it, Elliot; you better live, sleep, eat, and breathe Olivia. And if that's a problem I better be the first to hear about it. "

"_That_ won't be a problem. Thanks, Captain."

"Good. Now go clean yourself up. You look like crap."

Elliot exited the office and walked over to his desk. Olivia looked up at him with anger in her eyes. He couldn't bare looking at her disappointed face after the morning he just had. They had been having heated arguments since she came back from her undercover job. He spent the entire time she was gone thinking about her and now all he could do was disagree with everything she had to say. All he wanted was for things to go back to normal. The pit of his stomach turned to knots every time he thought about her. He could see her thoughts as clear as day and it weakened him. He backed up and left the room.

Scene

Storming into the locker room, Elliot ripped open the door on his locker, and wildly tore off his sweaty slime cover T-shirt. He kicked his sneakers with a bang into the metal doors. He reached into his bag and pulled out a dark blue button down shirt. Angrily he forced the clean shirt over his arms and slumped down on the bench behind him. His faded oxford shoes stared at him from the bottom of his locker. The hard leather over squeezed over his feet one foot at a time. As he tied the laces one by one he couldn't get his mind off of the woman at the pier, and the voice that repeated in his mind. "I wanted to meet the man who's going to sign my last deal." His brow was sweating. He held his head in his hands and searched his mind for right answers.

Olivia opened the door behind him.

"Elliot, what the hell's going on? I thought you had control of yourself. I can't do my job if you don't want me here." She cried.

Standing to face her, Elliot dejectedly replied, "Livia, you have no idea what you're saying, so stop."

"No, I get it, and I don't need your approval to do my job. You know, I don't know what went on between you and Dani, but if this is about her you need to deal with it on your own time."

Elliot stood up. His temper was heated, "What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with Dani. And I've never questioned your performance as a detective."

"Oh come on Elliot, you and I both know that's a lie. That's what started this whole thing. What's going on? You're dressed like a criminal, you're unfocused, and you've been avoiding me since I came back. "

Elliot got right up in Olivia's face. He was holding back his frustration as best as he could. His neck was throbbing and his eyes were glaring. "I wear the sneakers and the t-shirts because they make my job easier. And yes, Dani and I had an understanding, but you have to understand that you can't blame me for…if you have something to say to me, why don't you just say it?"

Taken aback, Olivia replied, "Why don't I say it? You're the one who can't finish his sentences. I have nothing to say to a man that can't be responsible for his actions."

" How would you know about my actions? You're the one who left me."

"Left? Yes, I left. I left because I love putting my life on hold and pretending to be somebody else. I've been having the time of my life. It was a real vacation from the babysitting job I have with you. I left you. You don't know what being left behind feels like. You make it impossible for me to work with you. I can't read your mind Elliot. I'm being pretty open about how I feel, so now why don't you tell me what's going on with you?

Elliot was switching through thoughts of Olivia's face, her smell, her mere presence. He fought a battle in his mind for weeks and the stress was building at the top of his stomach like a bad ulcer. "Alright, you want to know what's going on with me. This. You and I. This thing that both of us try so badly to ignore."

With fire in her body Olivia took a hold of Elliot's eyes and drew him into her, "What thing? Say it. Just say it."

Elliot yelled in frustration, "I can't say it."

"That's what I thou-"

Before Olivia could continue Elliot grabbed her face and pulled her lips to his in a fit of uncontrollable urges that he had kept inside of him for years. As their lips came together Olivia found herself completely thrown off guard. Her body gave into her mind and she returned the force of his kiss with equal frustration. Their angry lips smoldered against each other and the rustle of their clothing moved with the rush of their bodies. Just before things got out of hand Olivia pushed Elliot aside. They pulled apart and starred at each other. Breathing heavily, Olivia looked away; her heartbeat was pounding in her ears. She wasn't sure if she should tell Elliot her deepest thoughts or slap him for making her vulnerable. Elliot stood frozen and speechless unable to admit out loud what he had just started.

Just then Cragen entered "Elliot, Olivia, get down to the forensics lab. They just found more evidence on your slimer."

They nodded and before Elliot could be rejected, yet one more time in his life, he rushed out of the locker room buttoning his shirt and diverting his eyes.

Olivia followed, "Elliot, wait. I …" He was gone.

"I missed you too."

Scene 4

Elliot was waiting in the car with the engine running and the radio on. He fell into an almost comatose state of mind. Olivia opened the car door and they both sat in silence while Sarah Vowell from "This American Life" jabbered on about public school lunch food in the background.

"There's nothing like the topic of hormonal meat to kill the fuzzy feeling caused by a woman", Elliot thought.

Olivia switched the radio off.

"Elliot-"

"I don't want to talk about it right now. We're at work."

"The lab is that way." She pointed to the right hand lane that they just passed.

Elliot pulled a U-turn and turned the radio back on. As the silence grew thicker Sarah Vowell threw in her usual music segways and Judy Garland started in with "_You made me love you. I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to do it_". Elliot changed the channel "_Love hurts. Love scars. Love wounds and marks._" He quickly reached to change the channel one more time and Olivia grabbed his hand and turned the dial off.

"We're here."

Elliot slammed on the breaks and pulled into the nearest space with a jerk and a squeal.

Olivia paused before they got out of the car "Elliot, can we do this? Are we ok?" She asked.

"Yes. I'm fine if you're fine. Are you fine?"

"I'm fine."

Elliot was unable to come up with words for the situation and decided that ignoring it was best "Fine, let's just do our job, please."

They got out of the car and avoided eye contact the rest of the day.

Scene

After a long day of goo research and endless video tape, the crew found a possible lead but nothing hard enough to make them jump to the killer. The Captain sent home his crew one by one. Olivia and Elliot were the last ones left. They both sat at a desk and looked over the security camera's video footage again and again in hopes to find a new clue. Olivia's mind was unfocused but she felt guilty for bringing her personal life into her job. She forced herself to read the information again. Elliot stood up and grabbed both of their coats. He watched her from across the room as she touched her disheveled hair and continued to persistently work as she always did on cases such as this.

Olivia spoke through an exhausted yawn, "God, he's like a ghost. He just disappears. So this guy has only gone after females that seem to be in charge of political or controversial corporations. Tyboon is known for their sweatshops, Carlyle is known to mix money for government favors, and Hilary is slowly moving on up to presidency. Besides power I can't see where these women connect? "

"Who knows, maybe they buy their shoes from the same guy. I've gone over that question a million times tonight, let's take a break and sleep on it. We can't get anything done like this."

"Now what did he say about the deal with you?"

Elliot's eyes glazed over at the thought of their perp's voice, "He said that I was going to be his last deal."

Olivia dropped her papers to the desk, "But you're not a woman."

"I hope not." Elliot joked.

"Well that doesn't make any sense. Why would he say that? "

"Liv, I can't think about this anymore. If we go by his timelines we have until Sunday. I need to get some sleep before my head explodes."

Olivia rubbed her eyes with the bottom of her palms, "I know. No. I have to just look at this one more time."

Elliot walked toward the desk. "Liv put the papers down. Go home, you'll be able to concentrate better after a night of sleeping. Remember what that's like?"

"Yeah." She sleepily looked up at him and stretched herself to a stand. "I suppose you're right."

Elliot caught a glimpse of her stomach as she stretched and the achy feeling in the pit of his stomach made its' reappearance for the third time that day. At this point of the night, he had completely lost his mind. Thoughts of Olivia swam through his brain and he shook his head to try and wash them away.

Olivia looked at him funny, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah. It's been a long day."

Elliot held open her coat. She slipped her arms into the sleeves and his strong hands rested on her shoulders near the nap of her neck. They could feel the presence of that awkward relationship starting up again and neither of them knew how to handle it.

Elliot asked, "Do you need a ride?"

"What?"

"A ride. Come on, I'll take you home."

"Oh. Yeah. Ok."

There was silence as they walked towards the door. The lights in the squad room were low and they were the only ones left in that part of the building.

Olivia stopped. She couldn't take the tension. "Elliot, what are we doing?

Elliot stopped and looked at her, "I'm taking you home."

"No, I mean, what happened earlier today?

Elliot looked at the floor, "I don't know Liv. I lost my head."

"Elliot, do you really want to ignore this?"

He looked into her eyes for the first time since the kiss, "No, but I don't know what do say about it."

Olivia touched the side of his face, "Is it wrong that we're placing our lives to the side for this job?"

"I wish I could say no, but I'm not sure if I can do that anymore. What do you think?"

"I think, I'm at a loss for words."

"That's a first.", he said with a smile.

Their eyes locked and they leaned in for a slow kiss. As their lips touched they opened slowly and Olivia slide her tongue towards his. For the first time all day Elliot felt comforted. He melted around her and she leaned into his arms. The kiss became more passionate and increased with each ebb and flow of the tongue over the lips. Their eyes were closed but every once in a while Elliot peeked at Olivia to make sure she was actually on the other end. She made an audible breath and he couldn't help but touch her. He ran his fingers through her hair and down her neck. He stopped and looked into her eyes and she smiled with acceptance. Her hands touched his stomach over his shirt and she slid them up to his chest and his shoulders. She took in every inch of his face.

Elliot softly spoke into her ear, "Liv, what if we screw this all up? "

Olivia whispered back, "Elliot, let's just enjoy this moment. I think we've earned it don't you?"

Scene

Elliot stopped his car at Olivia's apartment. They both stared out the front window of the car and waited in silence.

Olivia looked over to him, "Well, I'll see you tomorrow." She got out of the car and opened the door to her building. Elliot watched as she disappeared into the night.


	2. The Son of Man

**The Son of Man**

It's 8:10am in the SVU squad room. Elliot walked in with two coffees. Munch and Fin have already started going over the crime scene from the day before and they're on their way out to speak with the manager of Fantasy Costumes.

Munch walked by Elliot and reached for the coffee. "Aw Elliot, how did you know?"

Elliot grabbed his arm "Hey, put that back. That's not for you."

"Well, excuse me."

Elliot asked, "Have you seen Olivia?"

Fin and Munch answer an affirmative "Nope", as they resumed towards the door.

"Where are you headed?"

Fin answered, "We're checking out a place that sells Halloween supplies. We figure that mask had to come from somewhere."

Elliot nodded, "Let me know what you find."

"Will do"

Captain Cragen walked past Elliot towards his office reading a file, "Stabler, you're alone. What'd I tell you about that?"

Without looking at Cragen, Elliot gave him a wave, "I'm working on it Captain."

Elliot called Olivia and got her answering machine "You've reached Olivia Benson. You know what to do." Beep.

"Liv, it's 8:15 where are you? When I said sleeping was important I didn't realize you'd take it to heart. I brought coffee. Call me when you get this."

Elliot searched his pockets for his cell phone and saw that he had a message. He pressed his password number into the keypad. Olivia's voice billowed in his ear.

"Elliot, you were right, sleep is amazing. I'm going in early. I think I figured out where our women meet."

Elliot looked at the papers on her desk. They were still arranged in the same little piles she left them in last night.

Elliot yelled toward Cragen's office. "Cap, you seen Liv?"

"This morning? No."

Elliot turned towards his office, "How long have you been here?"

The Captain's voice is mumbled from the next room, "oh 7:00am. Why?"

Elliot stood in the doorway thinking, "ah, it's probably nothing, but I can't find her."

The captain spoke with a half of a doughnut in his mouth, "Did you try her cell phone?"

"Yeah. Yeah." He walked over to Olivia's desk to try and figure out where she could have gone, but the papers didn't seem to make any sense to him. He sat back down at his desk and filled out some of the paper work that he had been pushing to the side for weeks. Every 3 minutes he kept looking at the clock. The longer he sat there his mind started to race and he needed to know where she could be. He called her again.

"You've reached Olivia Benson. You know what to do."

Again with the beeping.

"Liv, I'm getting worried. If you're out on a case can you please give me a call, so I can meet you there? "

Elliot poked his head into Cragen's office, "Captain, I'll be back. Some things not right. "

The Captain responded with his usual tone. "Elliot. Where are you going?"

He threw his jacket on and called towards the door, " I'm going to check Liv's apartment and then maybe stop by forensics."

From behind his morning paper he answers to Elliot, "Take Fin or Munch with you."

Elliot yelled behind him, "They're out."

Cragen shoved the last bit of doughnut into his mouth "Wait." Doughnut sprayed all over his desk and his coffee spilled down the side of his pants, "Aw Crap."

Scene

On the car ride to Olivia's apartment Elliot called her cell phone and her home phone three times. It wasn't like her to disappear without checking in. His paranoia even started to make Cragen worry. He and Cragen got to the building and Elliot shot out of the car and ran inside. He fumbled with the keys and pushed open the door "Livia? Are you home?"

Inside he checked all of the rooms in her small apartment. Not a trace of her was to be found. Elliot came crashing into the car breathing heavily.

Cragen looked at him with a shriveled brow, "I placed a radio call to all units asking them if anyone has seen her. So far nobody's answered. Are you ok?"

Elliot's face was red and his hands were shaking. "I knew I should have stayed with her last night."

"What?"

Elliot back pedaled, "We were just going to pull an over nighter at the precinct, but I thought it'd be better to sleep in our own beds."

"Right." Cragen replied with a bit of concern.

All of the sudden Elliot jumped out of the car and started walking down the street. Cragen yelled out of the car window, "What are you doing?"

Elliot walked fast and scanned the ground, "Sometimes she walks to work in the morning. I'm going to see if I can find anything of hers."

Cragen was driving slowly and talking to Elliot from his moving vehicle. "At least let me park the car and I'll look with you."

Elliot moved faster, "We don't have time for that Captain."

Elliot crosses in front of Cragen's car at the crosswalk and yelled, "Meet me at the station. I'll call you if I find anything."

"I can't do that. You have to have a partner."

Angry with Cragen's distrust, Elliot fired back, "When I find her, I will have a partner."

Drivers behind Cragen start to beep their horns and he angrily yelled from the car, "Alright, but get your ass back to home base as soon as you're done." He drove off with a screech of the tires.

Scene

When Elliot returned to the squad room Fin, Munch, and Cragen were hovering over something on Elliot's desk.

Elliot stood behind them, "What's going on?"

He pushed through them to see a letter typed on a slip of crisp computer paper. It was the same letterhead that he had gotten 3 other times before this. At the bottom was a signature written in what appeared to be blood. Elliot took one look at the signature and cried "No. No. Damn it. God Damn it. Where did this come from? Who the hell put this here?" Everyone in the squad room stopped what they were doing. Elliot's voice was rang through the ceilings, "Somebody had to have seen the sick scum that put this here. Somebody better answer me."

Fin grabbed Elliot, "Hey, Calm down. We just found it. Nobody saw anything. We're having security bring us the videotapes and the sign-in sheets right now. You have to settle down."

Elliot helplessly thought out loud, "How did he get in here? " He grabbed the letter from Munch and read the whole thing entirely.

Dear Detective Elliot Stabler,

I know your secret and I have a proposal waiting for you in my office. I don't know how I missed this secret trophy before. You've kept her well hidden. My client and I would like you to join us for the deal of a lifetime. We're thinking about convening somewhere special. I was thinking Paris would be nice, but Olivia suggested an island instead. The usual time. We hope to see you there partner.

Sincerely Yours,

The Son of Man

"The Statue of Liberty. We need to get that island completely guarded with undercover cops. We can't have him suspect anything or he'll back off. I want searches done to everyone going into the statue. I have to go-"

Cragen gently cut him off, "Elliot, I already made the call and we have men scanning the entire area. Listen, we have to keep our heads on, for Olivia's sake. She needs us at our best right now." He could see the pain behind Elliot's eyes. Cragen turned to his team, "Now if he's using his usual timeline we have 6 days to figure out where he's keeping her. People work fast. Let's put our heads together and find an answer. Fin, Munch, show us what you found at the Costume shops."

Munch pulled out his notepad; "Well we may have just gotten lucky with this slime on Elliot's shirt. Forensics says the slime is an eatable children's toy with a mixture of the same contents that make up mace. We found the company that makes the slime and they pointed us to 5 shops that sell their products. The manger of Fantasy Costumes says he remembers a guy like our perp. He's always buying their slime kits by the dozen and he also remembers him buying the apple mask about 3 months back. The problem is he always pays in cash. But he did sign up for the e-mail mailing list. E-mail address is Rene1964. We have the computer labs working on finding our guy right now. Hopefully they can find us a name or a billing address."

Fin added, "We need to work on how he's choices is victim's and where his location may be. I'm going to check about our options. Elliot, you want to come with me?"

Elliot nodded. His eyes were blood shot and his mind was static.

Scene

Olivia woke up to the sound of a jackhammer. She opened her eyes and realized she couldn't move and she had no idea where she was. Panic shifted through her body. She realized she was only wearing her underwear and her body was tied down. She could move her head, but her arms and hips were tied to a medical bed, and her legs were bent and tied to stirrups. The room was empty and had no windows in it. Every wall was covered with drabby orange and brown flowered wallpaper from the seventies. On the ceiling was a picture of a scenic horizon of puffy clouds and a meadow of purple wild flowers. It looked like it had been ripped out of a calendar and taped there for a final happy thought. Her head was throbbing and she racked her brain to remember how she got here. The last thing she could remember was a tall man she had bumped into on her way to work. His face was scarred and he asked her for directions to the statue of liberty. When she was finished explaining the directions she turned around and everything was black until now. The jackhammer outside sounded close. She gave it her all to make him hear her.

"Help. Somebody help me. I'm trapped. Please somebody call the police."

The jackhammer stopped and she screamed even louder.

"Help me. I'm behind the wall. I'm trapped in here. Please help."

As those last words came out of her mouth, the door to the room opened and a tall man in a green apple mask stood in the door way. "Olivia, I see you've awaken."

She knew exactly where this was going and her only hope was that someone besides him could hear her. "Help me. Somebody help me", she screamed over and over again as she tried to wiggle her way out of the bed.

The man pulled a roll of duck tape from his pocket and snapped a piece off of the role. "Now, now, little Olivia, do I have to do this the hard way?"

Olivia whipped her head in the opposite direction and cried "No. Wait. I'll stay quiet. Just please tell me why I'm here."

The man looked Olivia up and down. He paced around the bed and slid his hand down her leg, "That's all in good time."

Olivia cringed from the touch of the rubber glove he wore on his hand. She knew that the only way out of this was to talk her way through it or hope to god somebody came to help her. She immediately went into interrogation mode.

"Why do you wear the mask?"

"Don't we all wear masks? Isn't that what god wanted us to do from the beginning? When Eve took all of Adam's power we no longer got the privilege to be our selves."

"Is that why you took all of my clothes away? So that you could have all of the power?"

His eyes glared at her from behind the mask, "I took your clothes away so that I could humiliate you the way your kind humiliates me."

"How have I humiliated you?"

The man took a knife from his pocket. He slowly ran the blade down Olivia's cheek causing a small cut on the side of her face. She winced in pain. She started breathing heavily and she closed her eyes to try and think of another tactic. The man replied to her "You're shear existence humiliates me".

He then captured her blood in a vile. Getting close to her face he whispered in her ear, "I want you to know what it's like to be me. I'm going to show you things you've never experienced.

His hot breath on her neck made her sick to her stomach. Olivia kept thinking about how Elliot would handle this situation and she started to panic. She opened her eyes and tried to keep control, "I've seen a lot of things in my line of work. I can assure you that by humiliating me you will only cause damage to yourself in the end."

The man started to laugh, "In your line of work? What do you know about the victims in your line of work? You listen and nod. You catch the bad guy. You don't know what it's like to be your victims, do you Olivia? You've never been raped or beaten have you Olivia? How do you know they didn't like it? How do you know they didn't ask for it or deserve it? " He was standing between Olivia's legs and he pulled a second rubber glove from his pocket. Slowly he snapped the glove on his left hand.

Olivia angrily fired back at him, "I don't need to experience their suffering to understand their pain. If it weren't for men like you there would be no suffering victims."

He sliced the inside of her leg with his knife, "Shut up. You're going to feel my pain whether you like it or not."

She cried out loud from the cut of the knife. "Are you a victim, Son of Man? I can help you. We can fight this together. You don't have to do this to make your suffering right."

The man unzipped his pants. "You think you have all the answers don't you detective. I can't wait to see Elliot's face when he sees the trophy I make out of you."

"Elliot's face could never give you the satisfaction you deserve. Let's do this a different way."

The man ripped her underwear, " Oh but you see it has to be this way. It's the only way to seal the deal."

She watched him as he forced himself in her and she winced from the thrust. "Ahhh, Please don't do this. You don't have to do this. New deals are made everyday. Let's negotiate." The man laughed and moved faster.

She had to think of something else to get him to stop, "What's your name?"

The man paused and he moved his face close to hers, "Why do you want to know that?"

Olivia tried to pull herself together, "You know all about me. I know nothing about you. If we're going to be in business together I have to get to know you. Please let me see your face?"

As he pushed hard into her he grunted through his teeth, "Detective Benson, you ask too many questions."

Olivia cried in pain, but her objective remained strong, "If you kill me and I don't know your name the deal will be worthless. How will I know who's responsible for taking every piece of me away?

The man stopped and pulled himself away from her. For a moment he looked into Olivia's brown eyes. He could see her struggling thoughts. It excited him and he pulled the mask from his face. Olivia could see the scars clearly.

"My name is James Preston. I want you to take that to the grave, Benson. Do you see what you did to me?" He pointed to his face and continued, "Everyday that I sat in this room and nobody came to rescue me. I am the result of your faults and now you will pay for it."

In a soft voice Olivia said, "James, I want to help you. Will you let me help you now?"

James stood completely still, and then he started to touch himself.

Olivia ignored it and pressed him with more questions, "Was this your bedroom James?"

James didn't answer her and his hand was moving faster.

Olivia continued hoping that he would give into her. She was treating him as one of the many child victims she's had to deal with in the past, "And did your mother pick out the wallpaper for you?"

The word mother angered James and he thrusts into Olivia while screaming like he was having a hallucination, "Shut up, shut up, you worthless piece of shit. You'll never amount to anything. You're evil. You're an evil bitch."

Olivia started crying and tried to take her mind to a different place. "James, it's ok, I'm not going to hurt you. James, please calm down. Please, I can't help you if you hurt me."

James slapped Olivia on the face hard. He grabbed her by the neck until she passed out, and he finished with a sudden backwards step. Olivia lay lifeless on the bed. His first round of empowerment was complete. He pulled himself together and walked out of the room.


	3. Lady Liberty

**Lady Liberty**

It has been 3 days and no one has found a thing on the son of man. He's like a shadow that slips under floorboards. Every available detective has been working hard to find more information on the where-abouts of Olivia Benson and her abductor. Elliot was sifting through the papers on Olivia's desk once again hoping that she had found something that would help them. After 3 days of interviewing the family and friends of Jacklyn, Regina, and Lauren, so far all that he could come up with was that they all attended the "Women of the Future" banquet in September. That was one week before the first victim, Lauren Armond, went missing. Munch was in the back room watching endless footage from the security cameras, and Fin was on the phone with the computer tech lab.

Fin put down the phone and got everyone's attention, "Ok listen up. Tech lab said the e-mail address belongs to a James Preston. None of our records bring him up in the system, so either he's made himself another identity or this is his first time with the public eye. They also traced the e-mails and found that it was used at 10 different locations. Five of those locations are Internet cafes, 3 of them are from his victim's offices, one of them is from an address in Jersey, and the last one was from this office. I've already questioned the Internet cafes and left all of the pertinent information about our perp. Besides the back of his head, we have no visible picture of him from security cameras. The tech lab just called about the website history on his victims computers and they found that our perp checked his e-mail. The computer here at the office was used for e-mail checking and paper printouts. They also found out that he was receiving e-mails from all of his victims two days before each of their missing persons dates. These were all e-mails setting up the meetings in which he posed as different clients to abduct them. So far the only hard evidence we have is the Jersey address that belongs to a Margaret Turintin. Margaret has some hard money and also attended the "Women of the Future" banquet. Right now, we're thinking she could be his next victim or that she was going to be his next victim."

Munch threw the remote control down, "I've got a repair man here signing in at the security desk. I'd say this is our guy, but his face is not visible. He's wearing a low baseball cap in all of these shots and he knows exactly how to turn his face away from the cameras. He's checked in everyday so far, so he must work here. He's the only guy that has entered the building in our time frame. Security says his name is Jimmy Smith and he just started working here 3 months ago. He conveniently disappeared the day Olivia went missing. Hasn't been back since. Security also described his face to have scars all of it. We have him with a sketch artist right now. I'm going to sift through the first couple of days he started here. He had to have messed up somewhere."

Elliot added, "So he was here right under our noses and not one of us noticed? Where are his paychecks going?"

Fin replied, "It's a P.O. Box and he has never used it. He just got the box to get the job."

Elliot sighed, "So what you're saying is we got nothing."

Fin held up a slip of paper, "We have this Jersey address. Let's go check it out."

Scene: Home of Margaret Turintin

Elliot and Fin drove to a rich suburb just past the New York boarder in New Jersey. There they knocked on a big red door and a little old man in a suit answered, "How may I help you?"

Elliot pulled out his badge, "NYPD. We need to speak with Margaret Turintin."

The old man asked, "May I ask what this is involving?"

Elliot replied, "Police matters. Sir, if Margaret Turitin is home we need to speak with her immediately."

The old man invited them into the parlor, "One minute gentlemen. I'll have to prepare the lady for your visit." He bowed and shuffled out of the door.

Fin and Elliot sat in the floral patterned room on tiny chairs. Fin broke the silence, "I feel like I've stepped into the ugly museum."

Elliot ignored him. He felt like a clock was ticking at one hundred decibels in his mind.

Finally, the little old man shuffled back into the parlor and announced his lady, "Gentlemen, Ms. Margaret Turitin."

Margaret was an older woman with a hard face. Her dark blue dress looked like it had been stolen from a disco ballroom for the rich and her hair was tight in a French twist on the back of her head.

"Good afternoon gentlemen, how can I help you?"

Fin spoke first, "Margaret, we have reason to believe that your computer is being used by a homicide suspect. Do you know anybody by the name of James Preston or Jimmy Smith?"

Margaret sat in a big orange chair and her eyes grew wide as he spoke the names, "Well, of course I do. James Preston is my son."

Fin gave Elliot a look and turned his back to Margaret. "Ma'm has James visited you in the past 3 days?"

Margaret replied, "Detectives, I haven't spoken or seen my son in 10 years, so I don't know how he could possibly be using my computer. What kind of trouble is James in?"

Fin sat forward, "We can't discuss the information at this time with you, but it is important that we find him. Is there any way that he could have broken into your home and used it without you knowing?"

Margaret replied, "I have the best security system money can buy, I'm sure that would have been quit impossible."

Elliot was getting agitated by this whole conversation, "Ma'm, is there any information you can give us about James' where-abouts? It is very important that we reach him as soon as possible."

Margaret asked, "Even if I knew, why should I tell you?"

"I realize you're only trying to protect your son, but if we could talk to him, we could clear this whole situation up. Do you know where we could find him?"

"I haven't a clue detectives."

Fin pressed her with more questions, "Are you sure? Do you have any other homes or properties that he could be staying in?"

"Why yes. I have many homes and offices. My late husband, Boris Turintin, was the President of Tyco International."

A light bulb went off in Elliot's head, "Do you own offices in any of these buildings? " He flipped the pages of his notebook and handed it to her to read.

Margaret look at the page, "Where did you get this information from?"

Elliot tried to explain without giving away too much information, "There have been three women from each of these office buildings found raped and murdered. We believe your son knows something that might help us find our perp."

Margaret cried, "Oh dear god, that just can't be."

Fin took the notebook from her hand, "Unfortunately it can. Can we get permission to search any of the properties that your son might be located in?"

Margaret replied with force behind her voice, "Absolutely not. Those are private. I can't have you traipsing about my private homes. There would be no reason for James to be there in the first place. He had made it very clear the last time we spoke that he wanted nothing to do with me."

Elliot was boiling inside, "Ma'm, if you don't give us those addresses and the permission we're just going to get a warrant and come back."

Margaret huffed, "Well you do that detectives, but I'm not giving you a thing until I have to."

Elliot stood with anger in his eyes, "Listen lady, a very dear friend of mine is going to die if we can't find her in the next three days. Now if you have any information about your son you better hand it over."

Margaret was speechless and appalled by Elliot's manner. She scuttled to the door and paused to think about it, "7845 E. Chestfield, Dannemora, NY. That was James' favorite home. That's where we lived before I married Boris. I kept the home especially for him. If he's not there I can't help you."

Elliot pushed past Margaret, and she wailed in disgust. Fin walked by and said, "Excuse me. And thank you for your help. If you think of anything else, give us a call." Fin flicked a card at her and she took it by the corner and waved it toward her butler.

Scene

In the car ride to Chestfield St, Elliot hoped that they weren't too late. The sun was going down when they neared the building. It was a dilapidated home in the middle of a small rundown town near the City.

Fin was the first to speak when they stepped out of the car, "Looks like Margaret Turintin was moving on up when she married Boris."

The house looked completely empty and dark. Some of the windows were boarded up.

Elliot looked inside one of the windows and couldn't see a thing, "If he's in here, he's probably not going to answer the door."

"So what are you suggesting? Breaking and entering?"

That's exactly what Elliot was suggesting, but he answered, "No, lets scan the outside of the house first. I don't want this guy getting away again. You call for back up."

Elliot headed for the backyard and Fin pulled out his cell.

Elliot can see that there was a basement, but the windows have been sealed with concrete. The back yard was all cement. There were three patches of freshly laid concrete towards the back of the yard. Next to the holes was a jackhammer and a half dug up chunk of concrete. Elliot wasn't sure what that was all about, but he had his hunches. When he returned to the front of the yard Fin was waiting for him.

"Back up is on its way. What are we looking at back there?"

Elliot replied, "Most of the windows are boarded up or sealed with concrete. It appears that the only way out is the back door."

"Ok I'll take the front, you take the back."

Fin knocked loudly on the door, "Police open up."

Elliot headed for the backdoor. His heart was racing and he had a knot in his stomach.

Scene

Olivia lay on the bed in the dark. There was a small nightlight on in the corner with a mocking bird on it. After her first attempt of freeing herself, James taped her mouth shut for the next two torturous rapes. James has been gone from the room for what seemed like hours to Olivia. She was still tied up and her body was weak from lack of food and water. Her only hopeful thought right now came from the blue clouds and purple flowers that hang above her head. She was about to close her eyes from exhaustion when she heard a knock and a voice. She thought it was an illusion in her mind, but she listened hard for another one. She heard it again. She tried to scream through the tape, but it was muffled. She kept making as much noise as her voice box could take. James came barging through the door.

"Looks like our plans are going to change my friend."

He pulled out a gun and Olivia thought that was the end of her. He stood behind her with the gun to her head, "One peep from you and I will blow your brains out right here."

Olivia clenched her eyes tight and shook with terror. James quickly loosened the straps holding her to the bed.

Scene

Upstairs Fin saw a figure rush past the hallway inside and disappear through a door.

Fin yelled, "NYPD. Open the door."

Elliot stood in the back yard ready to fire at anyone who came out of the door. All of the sudden he heard sounds coming from the basement. He started yelling, "Olivia? Olivia. I can hear you, keep talking. Olivia!"

Olivia heard that familiar voice and her heart came to life. "Elliot, please find me. I'm right here", she thought as James tied her hands and feet together.

Scene

Elliot kicked the back door open. Fin was already inside when he got there. Fin pointed towards the door with his gun and they slowly went to the basement.

Scene

James drugged Olivia, wrapped a blanket around her and lifted her over his shoulder. In the corner of the room was an old throw rug. He kicked the rug aside and disappeared into a tunnel.

Scene

When Elliot and Fin made it to the room, they found it empty.

Elliot saw the bed and the blood and nearly passed out. Fin eyed the tunnel in the corner, "Elliot, there." They both ran into the tunnel.

On the other side of the tunnel Elliot and Fin saw a hidden driveway that lead to the highway. In the dirt driveway they could see fresh tire tracks. Elliot fired his gun into the dirt, "Damn it!"

Scene

Elliot and Fin walked through the doors of the squad room. It was midnight but the room was all a buzz, with every detective on duty. Cragen saw them and waved them over, "Elliot, Fin, nice work finding his home base. So far they've been able to find evidence that links him to all of the murders. Now we just have to catch him."

The next 24 hours were gut wrenching. Elliot barely ate and slept in 4 days and he was ready to go out his mind. There wasn't word of him anywhere. They had a high volume of men guarding the Statue of Liberty and the detectives were keeping Margaret Turintin on a tight string. Elliot shuffled through the evidence when his cell phone rang. It was Maureen's number.

"Maureen. What are you doing up at this hour?"

Maureen was crying on the other line, "Daddy, I saw the news. Is Olivia going to be ok?"

Elliot's eyes watered, "We don't know yet, honey. I'm doing everything I can to find her."

" I know you are Daddy. I'll say a prayer for her tonight."

"I'm sure she'd like that. Maur, I love you."

"I love you too Daddy"

"Don't think about it right now. Sweet dreams."

"Good night Dad."

"Goodnight Baby doll."

Elliot's eyes swelled with tears. He headed to the bathroom to blow of steam. All of the tension building up inside of him ran out through the tears on his face. He thought of his kids and was glad that they were still safe. He'd never felt so sick and hopeless in his life.

Scene

The next morning Elliot was getting ready to leave the squad room to bring Margaret Turintin in for interrogation. As he sat at his desk his phone rang. It was Olivia's phone. Somebody had turned it on.

"Olivia?"

There was only noise and then a faint voice, "Elliot? (pause) He's making the deal now. (Pause) Come and get me." Then she hung up.

Elliot freaked out, "Trace this call. That was her. Somebody trace this call. We gotta get to Liberty Island now."

Everyone in the room got to their feet. Elliot, Cragen, Fin and Munch dashed for the door.

Scene

A man in a garbage collecting van, pulled off of the Ferry to Liberty Island. He waved to the guards on the other side. The guards said to him, "Hey Marve how's your day?"

He replied, "I'm fine, what's going on here today? It took me 20 minutes to get through a security check point."

The guard nodded, "Yeah, some sick asshole, kidnapped a cop, and he's supposedly ditching her here."

Marve replied, "Man, that's pretty screwed up."

"If you ask me it's a big waste of time. The chicks probably dead already. But you know how it is; we gotta make it look like we tried to help her. Waste more time and tax dollars, instead of fixing the problem before it starts."

Marve laughed, "How the hell does a cop get kidnapped anyway?"

The guard joked back, "Beats the hell out of me. See you later Marve."

Marve drove towards the statue. Olivia moaned in pain and hunger in a hidden compartment under the van.

Scene

By the time Elliot and the rest of the crew made it across on the ferry they could hear screams and gunshots. Elliot jumped over the ferry gate and forced himself past the guards holding his badge. There in front of the statue was Olivia, tied to a pole attached to the foot of the first floor. She was completely naked. There was police tape wrapped around her chest and waste, her mouth was taped shut, her left hand was tied to a box, and her right arm was taped to a torch that was lit. She was holding it above her head and her head was limping to the side from exhaustion.

Elliot took one look at her and screamed, "Olivia!"

She mumbled and cried.

Elliot ran full speed for the entrance of the building and ran for the stairs to the base of the statue. A guard ran behind Elliot. He yelled at the guard, "How did he get past you? The statue is closed."

The guard replied, "I don't know, the only guy I let up there was the maintenance man."

Elliot made it to the top out of breath. He was wheezing for air as he rounded the corner where Olivia was tied. There on the other side was James, dressed for the part in his suit and mask.

"Elliot, you're a good cop after all. Olivia was worried you weren't coming."

Olivia yelled through the tape. Her arm was getting tired of holding the torch, but she couldn't drop it or the bomb in her left hand would take flight.

Elliot took no time to play games with James this time and he pointed his gun to fire it at James.

James stopped him, "Elliot if you shoot me this whole statue goes up in flames." Elliot saw a wire attached to James' body. The wire ran up to the box in Olivia's arm. He also saw another wire running from the bottom of the torch to the box. The man laughed as he saw Elliot slowly realize what was going on and said, " Olivia is holding more explosives then she can handle, aren't you Olivia?"

Olivia forced her eyes to stay open while her arm muscles shook with pain.

Elliot lowered his firearm, "What do you want James?"

James replied, "I want world peace."

Elliot yelled back, "You have a funny way of showing it."

Olivia's arm started to fall and Elliot yelled at her, "Olivia, don't do it. Hold on. You're strong. You can do this."

James teased, "Yes Olivia, show the world how strong women really are."

James started bantering on in an almost psychotic state of mind, "When all the women are mine I shall return to heaven where god will place me at his right hand side. The sins of the United States lay in the palm of my hand."

Just then Elliot heard voices behind him and Margaret Turintin and a crew of police men entered. Margaret pushed through them with a cry, "Oh, James, what are you doing?"

James pulled the mask off of his face and answered angrily, "I'm doing what you taught me mother."

Margaret's footing fumbled and she stuttered, "James, James, this is insanity. Undo that wire."

James yelled, "Never mother."

All of the sudden Margaret pulled out a pistol and changed her tone, "James Alfred Preston, you are a no good waste of a little boy. You listen to your mummy right now and take off that wire."

Elliot yelled, "No, Margaret, put the gun down."

James backed up, "You ruin everything mother. Don't you love what you created you evil whore?"

His voice was shaky and he kept backing up.

Olivia cringed as goose bumps ran up her body. Her arm fell a little more as the wind off of the water blew onto her bare skin. Elliot cried, "Olivia, hang on for me. For me, Liv. We can do this."

Olivia looked down at him and pushed her arm back up in the air. She just wanted to die at this point. Her mind went in a dark place and she clenched the muscles in her arm. Breathing in and out to make the pain as bearable as possible.

Margaret got closer to James, "James, so help me god, you will obey me or god will send you straight to hell."

James kept backing up and he became too upset by his mother to notice the wire rip off of his chest. He fell over and Margaret shot him in the head. Fin came from the other side of him, "Freeze Margaret." He forced the gun from Margaret's hand and read her her rights while he cuffed her and took her away.

Tears were rolling down Olivia's cheeks as Elliot climbed to the side of the wall to release her slowly falling arm. "It's ok. It's over, Liv. Just give me a second." He stood face to face with her. One hand held him to the building and the other held her arm with the torch in it. "Can someone get me a blanket?" he asked as Olivia shivered beneath his body. Their eyes met, but Elliot could see she was in a bit of shock. Her body fell limp as he held her to the wall. She nestled her head under his chin and almost passed out.

The bomb squad was rushing around Elliot to disarm the bomb. The torch was taken from Olivia's hand and there was a beep from the box she was holding in her left arm. The nightmare was officially over. Elliot pulled the tape from Olivia's mouth and brushed her hair from her eyes. Her eyes were closed and Elliot nudged her awake, "Liv, don't pass out on me now. We're almost out of this." She looked at him with tired horror stricken eyes. She faintly spoke with a raspy voice, "I knew you'd find me."

He smiled he was so glad to hear her voice. For a moment he thought maybe she was going to stay in a state of shock, "I'm glad you knew, because I was getting a little worried."

She smiled, "It took you long enough." Elliot laughed and knew her spirits weren't completely broken. Elliot took out his pocketknife and started to cut the police tape and rope holding Olivia onto the building. The ropes loosened and Olivia slid down onto Elliot. He tried desperately not to look at her for fear it would cause her embarrassment, but he caught a glance of the dried blood on her thighs and he knew it was going to be a long recovery. Her bare feet rested on his shoes and he hide her body with his as one of the cops on duty handed Elliot a dark blanket. She wrapped it around herself and stepped onto the cold ledge. Elliot asked, "Are you stable?"

"Yeah" she said softly.

Elliot jumped down and held his arms out for her to crawl into. He carried her down to an ambulance and Olivia held onto him like she would never let go.


	4. Finding stability

**Ok, I'm slowly getting more ideas to continue the story. If you're just tuning into this, you might want to read my first three stories, "Old Shoes", "Son of Man", and "Lady Liberty", otherwise you might get lost in certain places. I have to say this is pretty hard stuff to write about. It's one thing to write about falling in love and flirting, but dealing with the psychology of a rape victim has been very challenging. Let me know your thoughts. I hope this isn't too depressing. I'm usually a comedy writer and I tried to add some in as much as I could, but it's not really a comedic piece and I'm trying really hard not to make it fluffy or melodramatic. Happy Holidays to everyone. Scarlett**

Finding Stability

Elliot sat in the waiting room of the Mount Sinai Hospital waiting for Olivia's results. He was exhausted, but he couldn't leave. The nurse came out to tell him he could go to Olivia's room, and he walked heavily to the door. She lay on the bed in a deep sleep. She was hooked up to an I.V. and there were bruises on her face, neck, and arms.

Elliot turned to the nurse and asked, "Is she going to be ok?"

The nurse nodded and said, "She's got a couple stitches from the rape, she's bruised, and dehydrated, but she's very healthy otherwise. She'll be able to leave when her I.V. runs out."

Elliot asked, "And what about her blood and urine tests?"

The nurse touched his arm and warmly replied, "Negative."

Elliot let out a huge sigh of relief. He was slowly but surely shedding his stress one level at a time. He took his coat off and sat in a chair next to her bed. His eyes became heavy as he stared at Olivia's face. She looked so peaceful. He was upset at himself for letting this happen to her. As he watched her slowly breathe, his eyes started to close until he fell into a deep sleep.

Scene

Elliot felt himself snoring and he jerked suddenly waking himself up. He wiped the drool from the side of his face and rubbed his eyes open.

Olivia was smiling and starring at him.

"What did I tell you about working to hard?" she said softly with her usual sarcasm.

Elliot gave her a smile and asked, "How are you?"

"I'm alive", she said as she took a sip of coffee from the cup on her hospital breakfast tray. "As soon as this I.V. gets taken out they said I could go home."

"What can I say Olivia Benson, you're a strong woman." Elliot grabbed Olivia's hand and traced her knuckles with his thumb. Elliot looked at the cup in her hand, "Are you drinking coffee?"

She smirked at his comment and replied, " A strong woman needs a strong drink."

"You know, most people like to take care of strong drinks at the bar, but not you. If you want I can go see if they could just hook the coffee beans into your I.V." Elliot jabbed back.

They both laughed and in walked Fin, Munch, Casey Novak, Melinda Weaver, Dr Huang, and Captain Cragen.

"Well look whose awake and causing hell?" Munch said with a warm smile. He walked over to Olivia and gave her a long tight huge. Fin handed her flowers and kissed her hand, "We're glad to see you Olivia Benson. You gave us a pretty good scare." Each of them took turns hugging her. Cragen held out his arms and embraced Olivia with tears in his eyes. "It's good to have you with us."

"Thanks guys. I missed you too." Olivia said as she wiped her tears to the side. "Ah, look at me crying. You guys, you're not supposed to make me cry. Who's holding down the fort, I think you brought the whole office with you."

They all laughed with tears in their eyes.

Just then the doctor came in and said, " Hey, what's going on in here? Olivia, are you having a party without me?"

Olivia laughed, "Yes, I'm a real party animal."

The doctor smiled, "I'm glad everything is going well in here. Olivia, I came to take the I.V. out and to tell you that you are free to go. If you need a moment I can come back."

"Could you give us a minute? Thanks." And she gave a smile to everyone in the room. Her smile was faded but not gone from her hopeful face. The sight of it made everyone feel relieved that she was finally safe.

Cragen's beeper started going off and he looked at Fin and Munch. "Actually, we have to go Oliv. You take your time getting yourself together and when you're ready to come back, you let me know. And Liv, I mean it, take some time off."

She looked down at her wrists that were bruised from the restraints and then looked back up. "I will Captain. Thanks."

He squeezed her hand and he and the boys walked out.

Everyone took their turn visiting. They were all trying to make the best of a bad situation. Olivia could tell that they were uncomfortable. Even Casey refused to talk about work, which was unusual for her. For now ignoring it felt like the best thing to do. When the doctor came by a second time, they all left going their separate ways.

Elliot was the last one in the room and he stood by the hospital window. He looked up at her and said, "Well, I'll let you get your things together and we can get out of here."

Olivia grabbed his hand, "Elliot, I never got to thank you."

Elliot stopped her, "No don't say that. If it wasn't for me you wouldn't be in this mess."

Olivia dropped his hand, "Elliot you can't blame yourself for this. It could have happened to anyone."

Elliot didn't want to argue the issue with her, so he just dropped it, "Yeah. Let me know when you're ready. I'll be outside the door." Elliot grabbed his coat and left the room closing the door behind him.

Olivia sat in silence thinking about Elliot's abrupt exit. She felt estranged in her own mind and body. Slowly she turned herself on the bed to stand up and she could feel the stitches between her legs. She sat in stillness thinking about what she had just been through. The flashes of orange and brown wallpaper. The pipe that dug deep inside of her. The darkness. The loneliness. The loss of all hope. She started to twitch from the thoughts and she stopped herself. "Don't do that Liv." She thought to herself. She stood up and saw a fresh outfit from her closet sitting on the chair. She wondered how it got there and assumed that Elliot had gone to her place and picked it out. She slid the jogging pants on one leg at a time and a flash of blood from her memory appeared on her thigh. "Stop it Olivia", she said to herself. She quickly pulled her gown off and fastened her bra with her eyes closed. She didn't want to see her skin. The thought of her skin reminded her of everything she wanted to forget. Faster she pulled her shirt over her head and slipped on her shoes.

She was losing her breath and the room was starting to close in on her. Quickly she opened the door and walked into the hallway breathing heavily.

"Are you ok?" Elliot said with concern on his face.

"Yeah. I'm great. Lets get out of here." She replied as she crossed her arms and walked away from Elliot's stare.

Scene

The whole way home Olivia nervously thought about how she was going to forget about her mistakes and her pain. As much as she wanted to be with Elliot, his presence was strangely making her panic. She wanted more then ever to go back to where they had left off 7 days ago. She sat in the passenger seat lost in her unsure thoughts of how to handle her sudden lack of confidence in everything she did or thought.

Elliot parked his car near Olivia's apartment. Before they got out Olivia asked, "Are you staying here?"

" Is that a problem?" Elliot replied.

"No, it's just that you don't usually do that." Olivia said.

"I could drop you off, but then I'd have to sit in the car by myself all night."

Olivia paused and gave him a look.

Elliot quickly changed his sarcasm, "Hey, if you need to be alone that's fine. I understand."

Olivia stopped him, "No, you can come up. I, but …"

" what?"

She wanted to say that she wished he were coming up because they just had an amazing time at the Opera or at dinner, but she held that back and put up her usual walls.

" Elliot, I don't want you to think that I need help all of the time. I mean, I appreciate this, especially tonight, but I can take care of myself. I've been doing it since grade school. Just because I'm a rape victim doesn't mean that anything has changed."

There was silence on his end and she could sense he was uncomfortable. She wondered if he still found her attractive. Her face was all mangled and her insides were torn apart. She felt completely foolish in front of Elliot all of the sudden. Her mind started racing between Elliot and her rapist, " Why did I give up? Elliot thinks you can't defend yourself. If I would have not brought up his mother it might have stopped. Elliot will never trust you as a partner again. I should have known better" she thought. She kept thinking terrible things and exaggerating them. She was mentally beating herself up and second-guessing her actions. Suddenly she was being shaken awake from her thoughts.

Elliot shook her, "Liv? Olivia."

"Huh." She pulled herself out of her mind and starred dizzily at Elliot.

"You went off somewhere. Are you ok?"

"Yeah, I'm just tired" She said half hardily.

"I'm coming up."

Olivia sat up in her seat to stop him, "No, Elliot, really, I know how to take care of this."

Elliot could tell that she was having a power struggle. She wasn't convincing him at all. Very gently he looked into her eyes and replied, "Oliv, you don't have to explain yourself. I know what you're capable of. I just want to be a good friend and you shouldn't be alone right now."

"There he said it" Olivia thought. Her insides turned at the word "friend". She hated being in such a weak-minded position. She looked out the window and then coldly turned to answer his comment, "Elliot, you are a good friend. I'm really ok though. I know what I have to do to get over this and I think it would be better if I did it without a bodyguard." After she finished her statement she opened the car door and slammed it shut.

Elliot followed her, " Did I say something wrong?"

Her eyes started to water and she walked away to hide it, "I'm sorry. It's not you. I just need some time."

"Olivia, of course you need time, but this isn't healthy. I can help you." She took fast strides towards her building.

Elliot yelled towards her, "Olivia, at least let me come up and make you dinner. Stop. Will you just wait a second?"

She stopped at the door with her back towards him. She was too ashamed to look at his face. She couldn't believe the way she was acting, but she couldn't control herself.

Elliot stopped behind her. He was afraid to touch her for fear he might cause a bad reaction, so he softly spoke to her, "Olivia, can we talk about this? Listen, I won't stay if that's not what you want, but I think you or we need to be here for each other. You've been through hell and back, and I've been in hell knowing that. What are you thinking?"

"Nothing. I don't want to talk about it." She held the side of her head as it pounded from all of the stress.

Elliot didn't want to force her to do anything for fear it would make things worse. "We don't have to talk about it right now. That's fine, but we both need to eat, and I think you like my company. I make some mean spaghetti. "

Olivia stood still for a moment taking it all in. She turned halfway towards him hiding the side of her face with the cut on it. With a blank expression she slowly replied, "Ok, you can come up, but only for spaghetti."

As much as she wanted to be alive and happy standing next to Elliot in her elevator, she felt an empty darkness growing inside of her. Her head was pounding as they road the elevator up to her apartment. Elliot didn't know what to do. He was caught between taking charge and letting her go. He knew she was bad at excepting help when she needed it.

They reached Olivia's apartment and went inside. There on the island in her kitchen was a bouquet of flowers and a grocery bag with food for dinner inside.

Olivia looked at it with a stone face, "You did this?"

All the sudden he felt foolish, "Yeah, when you were sleeping I came back to make sure everything was ready for you to come home to. I hope that wasn't out of place. I just wanted…" This was where Elliot would normally make a joke and hide the fact that he cared or had feelings for anyone, but he was afraid of her reaction. "I wanted you to feel safe." Elliot ignored her absolute non-reaction and dug into the bag to start up dinner.

Olivia walked to her bedroom. She wanted to just let everything inside of her go, but she was afraid of losing him. She didn't want him to see her dirty and weak. He was being so very open with her, but he wasn't quite himself. She could feel the tension in his choice of words. It wasn't as playful as their normal patter. Without saying a word she noticed that her living room was cleaned and her bed was made. Her head started spinning. "What am I doing? Why would he do all of this?" she thought. Tears started rolling down her face. She hated herself for crying again. Each tear made the cry harder to control and she sobbed out loud.

Her sob alarmed Elliot and he dropped the jar of spaghetti sauce in his hand. It hit the floor and splashed everywhere, "Shit" he cried as he tried to grab for the paper towels and not step on glass at the same time. In his attempt he slide on the sauce and got it all over the leg of his pants. He was now kneeling on the floor covered in sauce. Olivia turned to see what made the noise and as she watched him juggle the sauce and himself she slowly started to laugh and cry at the same time. "What, you think this is funny?" Elliot joked.

Elliot tried to get up and he hit his head on the open silverware drawer. He went back down to his knees and cried in pain, "Ohhhh. Can I get some help here?"

She grabbed the paper towels and tried to help him off of the floor. Her tears became hysterical and then they became a loud wale of laughter. Elliot grabbed hold of her and they both fell of over. He reached for the paper towels in her hand and wiped a bit of sauce on her nose as he pulled his hand back. "Take that for laughing at me."

She squealed and lunged toward him grabbing some sauce from the floor with her hand. She wiped the sauce on his forehead, "You missed a spot."

" Oh, that's it, you're going down." He sat up and grabbed her around the waste. They had spaghetti sauce all over themselves. Olivia pulled him to the ground in her living room and rolled him on his back. There she placed all of her weight from her torso up onto his chest.

Elliot looked at her face with the sauce on her nose. He was so happy to see her laugh. He wanted to kiss her, but he knew that would be a bad idea after what just happened in the car. Olivia noticed Elliot looking at her face and she grew self-conscious. She quickly backed away. "Wait" he said to her. He pulled her face towards his and wiped the sauce from her nose. "Its' just sauce. " He starred into her eyes and without thinking he just said it, "You're beautiful, Olivia." He cursed himself for saying that as soon as it came out of his mouth.

Olivia stood up quickly. She was relieved to hear the compliment, but unsure of what to do about it all. She decided to pretend she never heard it. "You know when you said you made a mean spaghetti I didn't realize you would take it out on my floors."

Elliot took a breath of relief at her sarcasm, "Yeah, well you're lucky it was only the floor. The last time I made spaghetti my son's plate ended up on the ceiling."

Olivia felt comforted by his comment and things felt normal, at least for the moment.

Scene

Elliot slept on the couch that night and Olivia tossed and turned in her bed. She tiptoed out to the kitchen for a glass of water and a sleeping pill. Elliot shot up like a lightening bolt.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you." Olivia said.

He grunted to a standing position, "That's ok. You can't sleep?"

A little embarrassed she said, "No. I've got some sleeping pills from the hospital. No worries. You can go back to sleep."

"Ok." he replied as he stretched his back and sat back down on the couch. He watched her pour the water into her glass and noticed she was wearing gloves.

Olivia spoke to him from the kitchen, "Sorry, it's not the best couch in the world."

"No, it's brand new. It's literally the cleanest, hardest, and smallest couch I've ever encountered." He said as he fluffed his pillow.

"Do you want my bed?" Olivia asked.

Elliot turned to her apologetically, "No, that's not what I meant. Liv, I'm fine. You need to sleep. Are you cold?"

"What? Oh the gloves….No, it's a skin treatment." She lied. She couldn't sleep because she kept thinking of her rapist touching her skin. It was the only way to calm her constant feeling of him and the itching.

She turned towards her room, "Good night", and got in bed. Five minutes later she got back up and walked over to the couch. She knelt down on the floor and placed his hand on the side of her head. He looked down at her and played with her hair. "Do you need me to do anything for you?"

"I don't know. I keep having the same dream over and over again."

"Do you want to talk about?"

"No. Would it be terrible if I sat with you until I fell asleep?"

"Terrible? Never. But do you want to lay down?"

"I'm ok." She yawned

He sat up, lifted her into his arms, and placed her in her bed. Then he slowly got into bed with her. "I'll stay here until you fall asleep. Ok?" She grabbed his arm and placed it around her torso.

"Is this ok?" Elliot asked. He wanted to hug her tightly, but he was afraid to make the wrong move.

"Yeah, this is good." Olivia was frustrated that he wouldn't grab her and keep her close. She sat with her eyes closed until the sleeping pill took her to dreamland.

Scene

Elliot's cell phone went off around 5 in the morning. He groggily answered, "Stabler."

Cragen was on the other line, "Elliot, I hate to do this to you, but Munch and Fin have been working non-stop for days. There's a rape homicide on 14th and 37th."

Elliot yawned, "Yeah, I'll be there in a few."

Olivia sat up, "New case?"

Elliot nodded, "You go back to sleep. I'll stop by later."

"I'll go with you." Olivia said as she sat up and looked for her pants.

"Liv, you need to stay here. You're on vacation."

"I'm on sick leave, and I'm not sick. Let me go with you." She said while pulling her arm away from his hand.

Elliot stood in front of the doorway to her bedroom, "Liv, this is a rape homicide you are under no condition to handle this right now."

"I think I would know how to handle a rape victim better then you." She snapped back at him.

"That's not fair. Don't play that card, Liv. You're better then that. You need to take your own advice and take a few days off."

She knew he was right and she sat on the bed defeated.

Elliot knelt down next to her. "Liv, you're going to be fine. You'll be out on a case before you know it, but you can't take on someone else's problems until you take on your own. Do you have an appointment with Dr. Huang?"

She nodded.

"Ok. Get some rest and do what you need to do. "

With a dazed look on her face she replied, "Yeah, go on. You need to get going."

Elliot was conflicted about leaving. He had never won an argument that easily with her before. She didn't seem to be herself. He tied his shoes and the door clicked behind him. Olivia sat in silence. She tried to close her eyes and fall asleep but the pictures of a scarred face kept popping into her mind. Just when she thought she couldn't handle the silence or the back of her eye lids any longer her radio alarm clock went off. She decided to start her long day of vacation. In the bathroom she sat on the lid of the toilet trying to convince her self that she could take her clothes off to get into the shower. She turned her radio up and the morning DJ blabbed on about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. The mirror on the wall gave her a clear reflection of her bruised face and neck. Olivia stared into the mirror. The cut on her face appeared to be bleeding. A line of blood ran down her cheek. She touched it and tried to stop the blood, but there was no blood to wipe off. Her mind was playing tricks on her again. She was so upset by her thoughts that she pulled all of the mirrors off of the walls and placed a towel over the vanity above the sink. She took a deep breath and slowly pulled off her pajama pants. She kept her head up so that she wouldn't have to see her skin. The stitches between her legs where burning, but she refused to look at them. With her eyes closed she removed her shirt and squinted through her lids to find the faucet on the bathtub. When the water felt hot enough she slipped in. It was her first shower at home. The water beat on her face and chest. The muscles in her body relaxed. KT Tunstall's song came on the radio. "Not this song again," Olivia thought. Every morning she heard the same set of songs. Normally she would have changed the channel, but she was relieved to have a familiar routine again. She started singing and dancing around to the music. "Suddenly I see, this is what I long to be. La la la la it means so much to me." Her thoughts took her to Elliot and she smiled while she sang and lathered. For a few moments she felt comfortable in her skin again. The song ended and the news came on. Her happy thoughts flickered slowly away when the woman spoke of her case, "After Detective Olivia Benson was found strapped to the side of the Statue of Liberty on Saturday the 12th, police found that her abductor, James Preston, was mentally and physically abused by his mother Margaret Turintin. Margaret will be on trail for the cause of these- " Olivia froze in the shower. The name of her abductor took her straight into a nightmare that seemed to be following her. She imagined a thousand eyes were starring at her naked body in the shower. Her mind went numb and she stood in a panic as she flashed into the dark room she had vacated for 4 days. The stitches started to burn as the soap washed down her body with the warm water. Thoughts of his body being forced inside of her came rushing into her mind. A tingling sensation surged through her insides and her stomach became ill with pain. Her head became light and fuzzy and the hot water seemed to be making her feel worse. She jumped out of the shower and vomited in the toilet. There on the wet tile she sat shaking and gasping for breath. Glimpses of her flesh threw her into a tantrum on the floor. She tried to hide herself by squatting into a ball, but she could feel him touch her and she could see the blood. She began to rock back and forth as she cried away her pain.


	5. Red

**Red**

When Elliot arrived on the scene fire fighters were in the process of distinguishing a house fire and four body bags sat in a row waiting for him. Melinda Warner was already there taking samples and notes.

"Melinda, what do we have here? Elliot asked.

"A mother and her three children were found stabbed and burning in this fire. From what I gathered thus far they were all beaten, then tied to chairs. The mother appears to have been raped, stabbed, and badly burned. The children were found in the other room and I'm guessing they suffocated by the smoke of the fire. The autopsy will tell us more."

"And where's the Dad?"

"They don't know."

"Ok thanks, let me know if you find anything else?"

Elliot saw some of the neighbors standing in the streets and looking out of their windows. He decided they would be the best place to start. He headed towards a man standing across the street.

"Excuse me, sir, I'm detective Elliot Stabler, did you see anything that happened here tonight?"

The man was in his 40's and looked grungy and unkempt. He replied, "Yeah, I heard the wife, Ellen, screaming around 4am. I looked out my winda, but I didn't see anything. I almost called the cops, but she stopped. Twenty minutes later, I smell smoke and the house was on fire."

"Do you know if the woman was married?"

"Yeah, her husband's name is Robert Lacey. We invited them over for a cook out once, but they never came. He was always out on business. Kept to himself. The little girl, Grace, was supposedly in some animated movie, something with cats in it."

Elliot nodded, "I see. Did you notice anyone go in or out of the house tonight?"

The guy scratched his crotch and grunted, "Yeah, I saw Robert's black Mercedes. Now it's gone."

"Did you ever physically see him at all tonight?"

"No, but nobody else drives that kinda car in this neighborhood."

"Did you see anyone at all around the house lately? Anyone, other then Robert?"

The man thought about it for a while, "Nope."

"Do you know where we could find Robert?"

"Not at all. Like I said, they kept to themselves. I really didn't talk to them much."

"Thanks, if you think of anything else give me a call", Elliot closed his notes and gave the man his card. Off he went to the rest of the neighbors in view of the house.

Scene

It took Olivia an hour to get off of the floor from her panic attack. She sat in her living room window with jeans, a sweater, gloves, and a thick pair of socks on. As she watched the people walk around outside she noticed there were some reporters hanging around her door. She assumed it had something to do with her. Her phone suddenly rang and she jumped from it's sound. Her thoughts were fixed on the static that buzzed through the glazed look on her face. It rang a second time and she almost didn't answer it. "Benson." She said faintly.

"Olivia, it's George Huang. We had an appointment at 9 o'clock today. I just wanted to see how you are and why you aren't here."

"What time is it?" She looked at the clock on her wall. It said 9:30 am. "Crap. I'm sorry. I got side tracked. Can I come now or should I reschedule?"

"Liv, come when you can, but please come today."

"I'll be there soon." She cried as she threw down the phone and grabbed her coat.

She got to her door and remembered the reporters out front. The last thing she wanted to do was get her photo taken. She ran back to the phone and called Casey.

Scene

An hour later Casey and Olivia came walking through the precinct with curly wigs, lots of make up, big hats, and fat Nicole Richie sunglasses on. Olivia figured if she was going to venture past the press she should at least give them a show. They walked past Elliot and his new partner. Olivia went straight to her locker. Elliot and his fill-in partner, Hector Iglacious, dropped their papers and looked at the two women with their mouths open.

"Olivia? Casey?" Elliot asked in surprise and shock.

Casey pulled her sunglasses off and looked over at their desks, "I'm helping Liv dodge the press."

Without lifting her head from her locker Olivia added, "Yeah and when I find out who gave them my address I'm going to personally put them through a whole new kind of hell."

"Calm down Marilyn Monroe. You're the one who dated the creepy journalist." Elliot replied.

Olivia slammed the locker door. "Damn it, you're right. Why are you always right?"

Elliot shrugged and threw something towards her, "Heads up." Olivia caught it right before it smashed to the floor. "It's your new phone. Try to be nice to it, it wasn't cheap."

Olivia held the red phone in her hand, "Thanks." She pulled her sunglasses down and looked him in the eyes, "That was sweet of you Elliot. You really didn't have to do that. Thank you." She gave him a hug and flipped the phone up to check it out.

Elliot felt Casey and Hector starring at them and his face turned red, "It was nothing. Don't worry about."

Olivia smiled at him, "Ok." She inwardly giggled at his attempt to hide his feelings from the company around them.

Casey broke the silence as she sat on the edge of Olivia's desk to model her hair. "I think I could get used to this look. What do you think Elliot, should I die my hair black and get a perm?"

"I think you're the next Lindsey Lohan, Casey. Now get the hell off my case files. You're starting to shed."

"Would you like my autograph now or later?" she teased with her charming deep voice.

Hector sat on the edge of the desk across from Casey and winked, "I'll take your autograph and your phone number, baby."

Casey was taken aback by the remark, "And who the hell are you?"

"Hector Iglasicous, at your service my lady." He grabbed her hand and kissed it.

Casey backed away and raised her eyes in Elliot's direction, "Right. Suddenly I have the urge to wash my hands."

Elliot cleared his throat and muttered, "My new partner." His luck with partners ran out the day Olivia Benson locked his balls in a vise. At least this guy gave him a reason to hate him.

Casey's eyes widened and she slowly turned in Olivia's direction, "Liv, I gotta go. You ok from here?"

Olivia looked up from her phone and pursed her shining lips, "I'm fabulous darling, thank you. I'll call you later."

Casey pulled the rest of her disguise off, "Later, beautiful", and walked out of the squad room door.

Elliot stopped Olivia before she could leave, "Liv, aren't you suppose to be with Dr. Huang?"

"Yeah, I'm getting there, Dad. I had to get my purse. You got a problem with that?"

Elliot pulled the toothpick out of his mouth and shook his hands in defense, "Hey –whoa- I'm just checking. Have fun."

Hector butted in, "Oww, she's a feisty one. You can call me Daddy any day, sweet cheeks."

Elliot choked on the coffee he just took a sip of. Olivia ripped her wig and hat off as she got up in Hector's face. Very sweetly she asked, "Hector? Is that your name?"

Hector nodded and smiled.

"If you so much as look at my sweet cheeks or anyone else's sweet cheeks I'll have your ass shipped backed to the police academy as a janitor. ", she threw the costume pieces onto Elliot's desk and walked out the door towards Dr. Huang's office.

Hector looked at Elliot ready to comment, but Elliot just smiled and walked away with the case files in his hand.

Scene

Olivia came rushing through the door of George Huang's office like a whirlwind from the spa. Dr. Huang sat at his desk and welcomed her with a smile.

"Olivia, sit, please. You look wonderful."

Olivia sat and laughed, "Yes, it's my new 'meet the press' look. I'm glad somebody likes it."

"I saw them all waiting outside. I didn't realize they were there for you. Did you make it through alright?"

"Oh, I can handle them. It's their cameras I fear." She said with a faded smile. As she sat in his office her stomach started forming butterflies with anticipation. She knew this small talk would only last so long. Avoiding her darkness was becoming harder as the day went on.

"So how are you?"

"I'm fine."

Huang smiled an all-knowing smile, "Fine. That's it?"

She nodded.

"Great, I'll see you next week then."

"Ok. I'm fine, but I've been ignoring things. Everyone around me has been ignoring things. I just don't know how to go back to normal. When I do feel like the day is going well I start going into hallucinating panic attacks." Her eyes grew red.

"It's quite normal for the ones that care about you to ignore a subject that may cause you pain. That's why you're here, right?"

She nodded again as a tear rolled down her cheek.

Huang handed her a tissue and continued, "So what exactly are you ignoring?"

"Everything. I ignore every thought from flashes of the attack to memories and conversations with…my friends."

"It's ok to talk about your friends here. It's all confidential."

"Yes, I know. I'd rather talk about the attack then my friends. I'm comfortable with my friends."

"Are you?"

Olivia started to get angry that he didn't change the subject. "Can you respect that I don't want to talk about them? "

"Ok, we can talk about that another time, but if you're not going to open up to the people around, they're not going to be comfortable enough to talk about the things you want them to say to you."

He hit one of her chords, but she still wasn't going to talk about Elliot. "I realize that, but I'm not ready to bring them into this yet."

Dr. Huang wrote something in his notebook and continued the session. "You said something about hallucinations? What kind of hallucinations are you having?"

"The kind that involves blood and…him…touching my skin." As Olivia spoke the words out loud she grabbed at her hands and the skin on her legs began to tingle and itch. "His rubber gloves running up my legs. And he was constantly pulling at my hands. " She tried to stop herself from tingling, but she couldn't. She looked down at the bruises on her wrists and her stomach whirled into a tight ball. Quickly she got up and shook her hands. "I'm sorry. This is harder then I ever thought it could be."

"It's ok, Olivia, take your time. This is not something we can put a band-aid on. Have you been wearing the gloves often?"

She was embarrassed that she even had to wear them. She stood by the window to feel the warm sun. "Yes."

"Why?"

" I can't look at my skin. My skin is crawling with him."

"Do you hate him for doing this to you?"

"No, I hate myself for allowing him to do this to me."

"Olivia, why do you think you allowed him to do this to you?"

She turned towards him. "Because I'm a cop. I'm trained to handle men like him and I just couldn't."

"What makes you think that you could have prevented this?"

"I…" She looked away and took a deep breath. This was the first time she had talked about the details since the report Elliot quickly took on the way to the hospital. "I thought I could convince him to untie me. I had him so close to breaking and then I went one step too far. I should have known that he would get angry at the thought of his mother. I knew, and this stubborn button in the back of my head made me do it anyway."

"Olivia, how do you know that that one comment would have changed things? I think that just by trying to use your investigation skills on him in that situation was brave enough. Most cops I've dealt with would have never thought to talk their way through it."

"Yes, but most, if not all the cops you know wouldn't have been in that situation. I let my guard down and now I'm paying for it"

"If your partner were to have gotten abducted would you think he was any less of a cop?"

"Elliot? No, absolutely not. But that would have never happened to Elliot. He wouldn't have been so kind to a stranger on the street. And that's where I have a flaw."

"And you're a bad cop because your flaw would be that you care too much?"

"No. Maybe. Yes. I don't know."

"Sometimes things are going to be out of your control. You can't beat yourself up. You're alive and healthy. You have a family of friends that love you."

"Do they? Do they love me? I'm alive, but I don't really know what I have. I have this job, some friends, and a possibility for love? If I lose even one of those things I have nothing substantial. I'm going on 40 and I have no husband, no children, my blood relatives are gone."

"Olivia, what do you do when you're not at work?"

The question seemed out of context to her. It threw her off, but she thought about it for a second and replied, "I…I go to a show, sometimes I read…I don't know. My job is my life, George." She looked away and wiped away a new tear.

Dr. Huang touched her hand, " Have you ever thought about trying new things to get a different look at your life?"

"Yes and no. Yes, I would love to learn how to do different things, but I'm usually just too tired to do anything when I get home."

"We should work on that. Would that be ok with you?"

"Yeah. I think I could handle some change."

George gave her a warm smile. "Now what is this possibility of love? Tell me about that."

She froze. Olivia wasn't prepared to speak about her feelings towards Elliot. "I…I can't talk about it."

"Olivia, if you're not going to take this seriously I'm going to have to recommend you to someone who doesn't know you."

"Why do I have to talk about my love-life?" She said sternly.

"Because the people closest to you are going to help you through this. I can give you medications and talk to you once a week, but the environment you live in and create are the things that will help you move on."

She looked at the floor in silence. She knew he was right. She sighed and let it out. "It's…a guy that I've known for a very long time. We're best friends and before this all happened we kind of started something. The relationship was always in a sort of limbo. I'm not even sure I could actually tell him all of my feelings. I thought at one point I knew exactly what page he was on and how to handle the situation, but now we're both afraid of each other. I'm afraid of him leaving me and he's afraid of me leaving him. Now he's afraid of my reactions. He touches me, but he touches me like he's afraid to touch me. Like I'm glass or paper. I'm so confused about who I am at the moment that I'm not even sure if I want him to touch me right now. I'm afraid it's going to remind me of something that I don't want to think about. I feel plagued."

"I see. Why do you feel plagued?"

"Because I can't even look at my skin. I couldn't even take a shower this morning without having a nervous break down. Even if I wanted him to touch me in a sexual way I am physically unable to do anything in that area. I'm ….I feel useless."

"If this had never happened would you have had sex with him by now?"

"Yes. I mean, if he wanted it, but yes, it would have been the objective of my week."

"Have you tried talking to him about all of this?"

"No."

"And why do you think that is?"

"Look I know what you're getting at, but I just can't do that right now."

"I think you need to. Once you start finding confidence in yourself you won't need him to accept you. It seems to me like you two need to open up to each other. You may not be able to be physical for a while, but it might help you to know what he's thinking. In the mean time, I want you to take some of this medicine to help you through your panic and depression. And I also want you to think about ways to bring new ideas and surroundings into your environment."

"New ideas?"

"Yes, find a new hobby. Go to the gym. Write a book. Do some home improvements. Paint a picture. I'm sure there's something that you've always wanted to do, but never did because you were too busy working."

She thought about it and nodded.

Scene

Elliot and Hector drove to a dumpy tow lot where Robert Lacey's Mercedes sat in a garage. A man with a hose stood next to the vehicle. Elliot yelled towards him right before it was too late, "Hey, buddy, wait. Don't touch that car. NYPD."

The man turned the water off. "What? I was told to wash and ship this baby to the used lot."

"Yeah, well that was before it became evidence to my homicide case."

Hector coughed, "That'd be our homicide case. Who told you to wash this thing?"

The man threw the hose to the floor in defense, "My boss. What's it to you?"

Elliot pushed Hector out of the way. "Your boss needs to clean up his paperwork before he makes a cut off of other people's property. This car hasn't even been in your lot for 24 hours. Now go get him before I shut this place down."

The man turned towards the office and mumbled under his breath. "Frigg'n Cops."

"What was that?" Elliot yelled.

"I like mops." The man yelled back.

"Yeah, you better you little…"

Hector opened the door to the car and excitedly ran a black light across the seats. "Look at that. Look at that!"

Elliot got next to him to see what the fuss was about and gave Hector a weird look when all he saw was some dried blood.

"I love blood spatter on a black seat. There's something sexy about it."

"You're a sicko, Iglacious."

"Yeah, I know, isn't great." Hector giggled as he collected the evidence.

Elliot ignored his partner's behavior and began inspecting the outside of the car. "So what do you got, Ig?"

"Well, we have some hair and some blood. If this is any of our victims we can at least get a warrant for the bank accounts."

"That's good because I got nothing but mud and possible finger prints out here."

Scene

Two weeks had passed since Olivia got home from the hospital. Elliot was working hard on his case and Olivia was working hard on herself. She was learning how to play the piano and she started training for the "Race for the cure" at a local gym. She was feeling really good about everything and her thoughts of the attack seemed to have subsided for a while. Elliot was sleeping on her couch every night. He was still keeping his distance but he could feel their tension releasing everyday.

It was 8 o'clock and Elliot hadn't come home from work yet. Olivia was about to take a bit of her General Tso's chicken and watch one of her favorite classic movies "His Girl Friday", when the sleek red phone on her coffee table started to vibrate. "Elliot Stabler, sexiest man alive" ran across the screen. She picked up the phone. It was the first time someone had called her. Usually Elliot called her home phone. "So now you're the sexiest man alive? I think George Clooney might have something to say about that."

"Huh? Oh. That was Hector."

"You let Hector touch my expensive phone?"

"Yeah, that was before I knew he was a sexist pig."

Hector yelled in the background, "Hey, I resent that. Most women would have been offended if I hadn't said anything. You can't win. How was I to know –"

Elliot cut him off, "Shut up Iglacious."

He got up from his desk and walked to the hallway for a more private call. "I'm finishing up and I just wanted to see how you were doing. Do you need food? I noticed there was nothing left in the refrigerator this morning"

"I'm fine and food has been taken care of." Olivia said with a hint of a warm smile behind her words. "I have everything I could possibly need, Chinese food and Katherine Hepburn."

"Katherine Hepburn? I thought Iglacious had issues."

"Hey, Hepburn could have kicked your ass. You leave her out of it." Olivia joked.

"So, would you and Katherine like some company?"

" I think Katherine and I would love some company as long as we're keeping this a threesome."

Elliot was at a lose at what to say. Olivia seemed to be in a progressively good mood, but sexual comments still made him nervous. "Ahhh….I think I can handle that as long as Katherine promises not to kick my ass."

" I meant that Hector was not invited."

"OH! Hector. No. God no. He's never invited. Sorry my mind is fried."

"I can tell. How about I'll see you when you get here?"

"Sounds good, Liv. See yeah soon."

Scene

Elliot got to Olivia's house and crashed on her couch. He took a couple mouthfuls of General Tso and starred with tired eyes into the television. Olivia was in a tank top and pajama pants. She sat on the couch attempting to knit a scarf and laughing at Jimmy Stewart's silly remarks.

"You're in a good mood today." He said sleepily.

"I had a nice session with George again today. I'm really enjoying the whole idea of creating a new environment for myself."

"I noticed. You're not wearing your gloves."

She stopped the knitting and looked at her almost heeled wrists. "Yeah, my fingers were tired of letting a dead rapist win the battle of fresh air."

"Sorry I didn't mean to bring that up."

"No, it's ok. I've decided he's not worth it." She smiled at him.

"Good. So what did you do today?"

"Well, I went to the gym, then to the grocery store, and ended with a new coat of paint on my bathroom wall."

Elliot looked at the Chinese take-out box in his hand. She grabbed it from him and stated, "Baby steps. Today I shopped. Tomorrow I cook. Maybe."

"What ever you say, Liv. I've said nothing. You might want to wash the paint out of your hair though." He touched the dried up dark purple paint in her hair.

She looked up at her hair, "Showers are over rated."

Elliot smiled back and sighed.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Ah, I've got a headache and I feel like I'm working with circus ridiculous. We can't seem to figure out the hole in our case."

Olivia pulled Elliot's head into her lap and slowly massaged his temples and forehead. "What's the hole?", she asked slyly.

Elliot opened his eyes and looked up at her. "You don't want to hear about. Besides I don't want to tell you about."

Olivia grabbed his head. "El, come on. Throw me a bone. I had to go to the grocery store today. My mind needs sustenance."

He really hated bringing work up at home, but he loved her passion for the job. He laughed at her, " Alright, but tell me if I need to stop."

She got up and grabbed a pen and paper, "Great. Go for it."

"Our hole is that we can't find this guy that may or may not be our perp. Either way, he needs to be found. We have a woman and her three kids. All dead. Neighbor's say there's a husband. He's missing. We find his car at Jim's Auto Lot. Jim tells us they found it in front of the garbage dumps."

"Could the body be in the dump?"

"We have men on that, but it's pretty impossible to get through the gates unless you work there. So far nobody's coming forward. Anyway, we found out that the Lacey's, who are the dead family and the missing father, don't exist. All of their records are made up. They have no other family members that we can find and everything important was burned in the fire. The little girl, Grace, is supposedly bringing in hard cash from a movie she made a year ago, but the family lived in an apartment they were renting in Brooklyn and we can't get a warrant to their bank accounts until the DNA reports come back tomorrow. These people are hiding from something."

"Did you get to talk to the kid's school teachers?"

"Yeah, according to Hector's reports anyone that knew them said they were the perfect family. Quiet and kept to themselves."

"You weren't with Hector when he did the investigation?"

Elliot pulled at his hair. "No. The caseloads coming in are too much for the department to handle, so I interviewed the garbage men and he interviewed the school. I went over his reports. They looked pretty thorough."

Olivia raised her eyebrow and cleared her throat, "How about talent agents and the film people she worked with?"

"We questioned them. None of them have ever met Robert Lacey. They said Ellen, the mother, was the parent that did everything for Grace on set, and when the movie was over, they disappeared."

"Could the dad be a gambler?"

"That's possible."

"Wait, how did he kill the wife and kids?"

Elliot paused. He was unsure how to continue without getting graphic. "Are you sure you want to hear this?"

Olivia dropped her notepad. "Elliot, I can't get back to my life until I start doing normal things again."

He wasn't sure if it was her sudden change in mood or her captivating eyes, but he just kept on talking. He told her about the rest of the case and everything felt like old times. Olivia took the details like a champ. After taking in all the facts she started throwing out ideas that Elliot didn't even think of. "Remember that case with the mob a year back. We couldn't convict them because there wasn't enough evidence, but the layout of the victims is similar, if I'm remembering correctly. They found the whole family burned alive except for the father. The family had changed their whole identity to get away from this gang of gamblers. Do you think this could be the same thing?"

"You know, I never even thought of that, but now that you bring it up that actually makes sense. Maybe….there has to be… I think you might be on to something. Hang on." He jumped up and grabbed his phone. "Fin, dig up any old files on mob victims in the last 10 years and see if you can get any hospital records from any of the victims on the Lacey case. I think the dad might be caught up in some money problems and I remember a case just like this a year back." He winked at Olivia and mouthed an "I'm sorry" to her. He felt bad about taking her idea, but he didn't want Fin to know he was with her. "I'm gonna get some sleep and I'll be by the precinct in a few hours."

He hung up the phone and kissed Olivia on the head, "Liv, you're brilliant. I gotta get some shut eye, before I turn into the incredible Hulk." He walked over to the black bag he kept in the corner with his over night things in it. He ripped his shirt off and unzipped his pants.

Olivia starred at his chest and his tight butt under the jockey briefs. She found herself thinking about touching him. He turned around and saw her starring and she dropped her head. "Um…why don't you just take my bed.", said Olivia as she put her notebook to the side and took a sip of water from a glass on the coffee table.

"I'm sorry, Liv. I didn't mean to bring you into this. I can't take your bed. I can sleep on the couch or I can go to the squad room and get some rest there if you need some time to yourself."

"Elliot, it's not a big deal. Just take my bed. I sleep on the couch most of the time anyway."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. You've had a long day. Go get some sleep." She smiled and focused on the television.

Elliot sat on the couch next to her in his white T-shirt and jockey briefs. He took a glance at her as she flipped through the channels on the television. Slowly he rubbed her back with the hand closest to her and she sat up straight and leaned towards his body. He noticed that she wasn't wearing a bra under her tank top and he could almost see the shape of her nipples. He turned his head and tried to think of something else. "I miss you at work."

Olivia was shaken from her thoughts of Elliot as she turned to see him starring at her. "What?"

He grabbed the remote control and turned the volume down. "I miss having you at work. It's not the same."

She blushed a little and softly smiled. "I'm strangely glad to hear that." He stretched and yawned and she couldn't help but look at the bulge between his legs. Her insides yearned and she turned towards the television to stop the thoughts.

Elliot pulled her towards him and wrapped his arms around her. "Well Hector is a handsome guy. I could see how you would be jealous of him."

She laughed and jabbed him in the side. Her laugh subsided and there was a pause in the conversation. Elliot kept looking at her breasts. He couldn't help it. Finally he grabbed the blanket from behind him. "I'm cold. Are you cold?" He figured that covering the problem might help the urge go away.

Under the blanket she curled up next to him and yawned. "Shouldn't you be going to bed?"

"Yeah, but my mind is still on. I need to wind down for a few minutes."

She grabbed his hand and slowly messaged each of his fingers. He moved his arm to get more comfortable and brushed against her breast. Her body tensed up with anticipation.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to…"

"It's ok." She knew this was her moment to make him aware of her thoughts like Dr. Huang told her too, but her mouth couldn't form the words. She glared at the TV trying to think of something truthful but not too girly to say to him. She continued to message his hands in silence. Her elbow kept lightly brushing against Elliot's crotch and he was about to move before something unforgivable happened, when Olivia stopped and looked up at him, "You know what I miss?"

He softly replied, "No. What?"

"This." She slowly went towards his lips with hers and they began to gently kiss. She wasn't sure if she was doing the right thing, but it felt like the best thing. Elliot couldn't stop himself from touching her. He ran his hands up her back and through her hair. She shuttered at his touch. She had been pining this moment every night for days, as she lay in her bed 10 feet away from him. Elliot couldn't control his body any longer. He kissed her with an energy he couldn't control and she returned it with as much intensity if not more. One hand was wrapped around her back and the other ran down her chest and cupped her breast. He kissed her cheeks and her neck as he fondled her over her shirt. She moaned and grabbed the bulge that was now bigger. He released a sigh of excitement as her hand rubbed him. Her insides were tingling with every touch of his body. She didn't even care about the fact that she still had stitches. She sat up and knelt around his lap. She could feel him between her legs and she couldn't help but rub against him. Elliot looked deep into her eyes as she moved her body along with his. He slowly looked down and something caught his eye. He saw drops of blood on his underwear. "Olivia, Olivia, wait. Stop." Elliot stopped her abruptly. "You're bleeding."

She looked down at herself, "Shit. Hang on."

Elliot stopped her "Liv. It's alright. We don't have to do this." He saw a disappointment in her eyes and he stood up to try to explain himself. " I mean, I want to do it. There's nothing wrong with you or that, but it's not the right time."

Olivia looked down at his nether regions and gave a smile and a bit of a laugh. "I don't know how you guys walk around with those things."

Elliot looked down and grabbed the blanket to cover him self up. "Oh Yeah, well, I don't know how you walk around with those things." He pointed to her chest. "If I had breasts I'd never leave my house."

Olivia laughed, "That's because you're a guilty Catholic."

"Alright, let's clean you up and get some sleep."

Olivia nodded and went to the bathroom. Elliot stood outside the door to make sure she was ok. He put her to bed and lay on the couch looking at the ceiling. His crotch may have been frustrated but his mind was at ease.


	6. making a dent

Making a Dent

After Elliot had left for work in the morning Olivia wanted to do some investigations of her own. She grabbed her badge and her gun and headed towards the precinct where she sat outside waiting for Elliot and Hector to leave the building. An hour later Elliot and Hector walked out the front door stuffing doughnuts down their face and arguing about the difference between Miller and Miller Lite beer. Elliot spoke as he wiped his fingers on a napkin. "My point is if you exercise you can eat what ever you want. I'm tired of the diet crap. It's all a scam anyway."

Hector burped and scratched his beer belly, "Yeah, well not all of us can be as dedicated as you."

Olivia shook her head as she listened to them wonder down the street. She ran up to the squad room to look for Hector's notes on the school investigation. She copied the papers and just as she was getting ready to put them back into the filing cabinet Cragen spotted her.

"Olivia."

Olivia jumped in her skin. "Captain."

"What are you doing here?"

"I…I remembered that I never finished some of my paper work from some old cases, so I came by to make sure it was taken care of."

Cragen looked at her funny, but ignored her lie. "How are you?"

"I'm great. I actually want to tell you I'm ready to come back."

"Olivia, I've talked to Huang, you take two more off and call me then."

"You've talked to Huang? That's real confidential."

"I only asked him if he thought you were stable enough. He didn't give me details."

Olivia was enraged, but she let it slide for fear the papers jammed in her coat would fall out. "Captain, I know you need the help. I don't care what Huang said; I'm ready when you are. Give me a call if you change your mind." With that she pushed past him and walked towards the door.

Cragen turned to his office. "Good bye Olivia."

She threw her hand up as a goodbye signal and was gone.

Scene

Elliot and Hector walked into Melinda Warner's lab.

"Tell me you have something Melinda. I'm out of options." Elliot asked through the toothpick sticking out of his mouth.

"I got the results back from the blood tests. We have four victims, one perp, and 6 blood types. Somebody else was in that apartment with them. And all of them have the same Y-chromosomes. You're mystery man is related to your father."

"Great so now we have a hidden son. I don't know how these people kept up with their lies."

Scene

Olivia knocked on the door of Amy Schultz. A thin woman with blonde hair answered with a baby on her hip. Olivia flashed her badge and she opened the door.

"Hi, I'm detective Olivia Benson. I need to ask you some questions about the Lacey family."

"Oh please, come in. It's just terrible what happened to them. My daughter has been in therapy all week. I can't even get her to go to school."

They walked into the kitchen and sat at the table while Amy finished feeding her baby.

"Mrs. Schultz, Grace Lacey and your little girl Amanda are best friends is that correct?"

"Yes, they were joined at the hip. They had a sleepover every week."

"So you probably know the family well?"

"Well I knew Ellen, her mother well. I only met Robert once when I dropped Amanda off for a play date, but he was a man of little words."

"Did Ellen ever tell you about Robert's occupation?"

"No. She was a very private woman. I do remember Grace talking about her father's business apartment. When I asked her about it she told me that they went there to help make daddy's friends happy. I figured he was just a hardworking businessman."

"Did the children ever show signs of abuse?"

"No. They were all happy and healthy."

Olivia scribbled in her notebook as fast as she could, "Do you know where this business apartment might be?"

"Well, yeah, it was the apartment you found them in."

Olivia stopped writing and looked up at her, "What do you mean by that?"

"They live right down the street in a beautiful Victorian home. The apartment you found them in had to be their other place."

"Victorian home? Where is there house located?"

Amy stood up to look in her address book, "Why?"

"Well that address is news to us. All of their records including the ones we found at the school board had the address to this apartment."

Amy handed her the address book, "I didn't realize they used that apartment so often. It makes sense though. Grace was never allowed to visit or call Amanda during the week."

"Do you know if they have any other family members like a grandmother or an aunt or uncle?"

Amy thought about it, "Um…. actually, I remember there was one time Ellen had to go out of town for a family emergency, and we watched the kids for them. She gave me a phone number. I think I still have it." She started digging through the junk drawer in her kitchen. "Yes, here it is. There's no name on it though."

"Can I take that with me?"

"Yeah, sure. I guess it won't be of any use to us now." Her eyes watered up. Olivia patted her on the back and took the piece of paper.

"You've been very helpful. I think this will be good for now. Here's my card, please call if you think of anything else that might help us."

Scene

Olivia was on her way to the Lacey home when she called Elliot.

"Stabler." Elliot said from the other side.

"Elliot, you need to get to 6512 W. 48th St, now."

"What did you do Olivia?"

"Just do it Elliot."

"Are you working?"

"Not exactly. Just get there. Hector needs to perform a better interview process if he wants to stay a detective. The Lacey's had another home. I did a background check and the name on the mortgage bill is Michael Sparelli."

"Michael Sparelli? Like Joseph Sparelli from the mob case?"

"Yes. I'm on my way to the Lacey house on 7789 E. Carson. You and Hector go check out this other address. A Linda Hurtz owns it. I'm guessing that Linda is a family member from Ellen's side. "

"Livia, stop. You can't go to their house by yourself."

"I'm already here."

"Olivia, I'll send Fin and Munch. Now go home. This is not your case."

"You can't send Fin and Munch. They're out on another case."

Elliot pulled at his hair. "Liv, this is not good. What if the perp is there? You can't take him on by yourself and you don't have a warrant. It's not safe."

There was silence.

Elliot shook his phone, "You there?"

"Yeah, I'm here."

"I didn't mean you couldn't take on a perp. I just meant you shouldn't do it alone. Come on how many times have I messed up a case because I thought I could handle it by myself?"

" Ok, you win. I'll call Casey to get you a warrant."

"Olivia you need to go home."

She hung up

Elliot clicked the phone off and slammed his car door, "Damn it"

Hector got into the car, "Lover's quarrel?"

"Something like that."

Scene

Olivia made it back to her apartment after she talked to Casey about getting a warrant for the Sparelli residence. She started making a chicken and rice dinner when she got a knock on her door. She grabbed her gun and walked to the door. "Who is it?"

A muffled voice came through the door, "Olivia, it's Maureen."

"Maureen? Hang on a second." Olivia walked in a circle with her gun in the air. She wasn't sure what to do with it. She jammed it in one of the kitchen cabinets. "I'm coming."

She opened the door to find all of Elliot's kids standing on the other side. "Hi guys!"

Maureen wrapped her arms around Olivia's neck for a big hug. "Olivia, I'm so glad you're alive. I was so worried."

Kathleen, Elizabeth, and Dicki, also gave her a big hug.

Dicki added, "Yeah, we prayed for you. Dad told us not to talk about it though, but Mom told me I could give you the card I made for you." He pulled a homemade card out of his pocket.

Olivia opened it up and read, " 'Welcome home. Get well soon. Love Dickie.' Thank you so much Dickie."

"Dickie has a crush on you Livi" Elizabeth teased.

Dicki hit Elizabeth and cried, "I do not. Shut up." Olivia smiled and gave him a big hug. "It's ok Dickie, I have crushes on a lot of people." He blushed and grinned.

"Well come on in." Olivia said as they all walked into her small kitchen. "So where's your dad?"

Kathleen answered, "He's trying to find a parking space. He told us to get out of the car because Maureen was driving and she almost killed us 10 times."

"Shut up, Kathleen. What do you know about driving? You've failed your test twice already." Maureen yelled back.

Olivia jumped in, "Whoa, girls. Calm down. I didn't even get to take my drivers test until I was 20 years old, so Kathleen you have plenty of time. Maureen, you were probably driving just fine. Your Dad tends to exaggerate situations he can't control."

"Tell me about." Maureen said as she sat down on a bar stool by the counter.

Scene

Elliot got out of the elevator and he could hear the kids laughing and talking loudly. He opened the door to the apartment, "Hey, what's going on in here? I could hear you in the elevator."

Elizabeth ran over to Elliot, "Daddy, Olivia has video games from the 80's."

Kathleen and Dickie were playing an Atari racecar game on the floor of Olivia's living room. Maureen and Olivia were cheering them on and backseat driving.

Maureen squealed, "Dickie, that's the wrong way."

"AH I crashed!" Dickie yelled. He stood up and stomped his feet.

"Hey, Dickie, settle down, there are people living under you." Elliot yelled.

Olivia looked at Dickie and shrugged, "He's the boss." She walked into the kitchen as the kids played in the living room. "Hi dad." She said to him with the dark sarcasm she loved to throw at him every now and again.

"Sorry, Liv, I forgot it was my turn to take the kids out for dinner."

"So you brought them to my house?" she laughed.

"Well I needed to pick up my wallet. I left it here, but then the kids wanted to say hi, and then Maureen was making me nervous, so we just all stopped. Sorry, I should have called."

Olivia smiled, "It's fine. I'm glad you stopped. Actually, I was in the process of making a big thing of chicken and rice. There should be enough for all of us. I like to make enough to last me a week."

Elliot looked at the oven, and then back to her. "Now how did you have time to figure out my case and cook dinner?"

"What can I say, I'm a superwoman." She replied as she stepped closer to him and leaned on the counter.

"Olivia Benson, if I wasn't so pissed at you for going behind my back, I'd have to kiss you for saving my case." He touched her hand. "Why don't you just come back to work? I'd rather know you were doing the job by the rules and with back up."

She linked her fingers into his and replied, "Elliot Stabler, I know that you like to think that I'm as irrational as you, but I have to tell you that I already tried that. Cragen won't let me come back."

"Yeah and he's probably right, so stop using me as your role model."

Olivia got right up next to him with her face right under his chin, "What makes you think I'm modeling you?"

He locked eyes with her, "I've been noticing that your temper is a lot hotter then usual."

Her upper lip slightly moved into a sultry half smile and she slowly raised herself up to his lips, "You haven't even seen how hot I can be. I don't think you could handle it."

They were about to exchange a kiss when Maureen walked in the kitchen. She cleared her throat. Elliot backed away from Olivia and Olivia walked to the refrigerator for some water. "Maur, what's up?", Elliot said as he shook his sexual thoughts to the side.

With a look of shock in her eyes Maureen asked "Are we gonna grab some food or what?"

"uh, yeah, Liv said we could eat with her." He yelled to the living room, "Would that be ok with everyone?"

Maureen stood and glared at her dad. Elizabeth and Dickie yelled back, "Yeah, dad let's eat with Olivia."

And Kathleen pulled her cell phone from the side of her head and answered, "Whatever, as long as I can watch Scrubs at 9."

Elliot looked at Maureen, "You ok with that?"

She looked at her father with disappointment on her face. She wasn't sure how she felt about her dad being with Olivia like that. She remembered the fights her mother had with him over Olivia and their actions just confirmed the relationship he said never existed. "I guess." She said softly.

"Come on, we'll get dinner at Ed's diner another night." Elliot replied as he pinched her shoulder.

"El, you guys don't have to stay." Olivia said. She could see Maureen was a little upset.

"No, we're staying. Maureen's just being a spoiled brat."

Maureen smacked her dad on the arm, "hey I'm only spoiled because you made me that way."

"That's it, come here." Elliot lifted her above his shoulder and pretended to body slam her on the couch. Dickie and Elizabeth jumped on top of him and they all wrestled and giggled, while Kathleen chatted on her cell phone in the corner. Maureen's reaction to their show of affection made Olivia feel uncomfortable. The last thing she wanted was to upset Elliot's kids. She loved them as much as he did. She was like their unofficial aunt. She could see why Maureen would feel weird about the idea of her being in the place her mother use to have.

Just then Elizabeth looked over at Olivia and yelled, "Charge Olivia!" Elliot, Dickie, and Elizabeth ran over and pulled her to the ground. They all jumped around and tried to tickle her. Maureen sat on the couch laughing and catching her breath. Kathleen started yelling from the sidelines, "You guys are too loud. I can't hear anything."

Elliot threw a pillow at her and said, "You shouldn't be on the phone anyway. Who gave you that thing? "

"Mom."

"Yeah, well Mom isn't here." Everybody paused and took a breath of silence. Elliot looked at Kathleen, who hung up her phone and then he turned his head to the mountain of his smiling children on top of Olivia and yelled, "Charge Kathleen!"

They all headed towards Kathleen who jumped off the floor and tried to get away. "You all have serious problems. Why is my family so weird?"

Elliot pulled her back to the floor, "Because it's our job to embarrass you every second of the day." Suddenly Elliot stopped, "Hang on. Do you smell that?"

Olivia shot up, "Shit. I mean, crap!" She ran for the oven that had black smoke pouring out of it. The smoke alarm started to go off and all was chaotic as Olivia opened the window and Elliot turned off the oven. They looked at the black chicken and coughed at the left over smoke.

Olivia scrunched her face and sadly said, "Ok maybe I'm not that super."

Maureen stood in the kitchen doorway and smiled, "It's too bad, Liv. Maybe we'll eat with you next time. "

Elliot gave Maureen the look of death and angrily replied, "Everybody get your coats and go to the car, now." Elliot threw the keys at Dickie, "The car's at the end of the block. Nobody drives, but me."

They all grabbed their coats and shuffled out the door.

Olivia looked at Elliot when the door closed, "Well that was awkward. I'm guessing they don't know about us?"

"Maureen has just been difficult about the divorce from day one, and Kathy's been feeding her lies about you for years. I'll talk to her. Why don't you put your shoes on and come with us."

"Ah, I'm gonna take a rain check. You should probably go spend some quality time with them. They only get you once a week. I'll go out with you guys when they've been informed."

Elliot nodded and grabbed her hands, "Olivia, I'm so sorry. I'm not really good at this whole….thing. Whatever you want to call this. God, I haven't even taken you out on a real date yet. Are you sure you want to do this with me?"

"Elliot, I've been secretly dating you for years. If you think I'm going to leave before I get to go on a real date with you, you have another thing coming. Maureen is the least of our problems. Let's just take things slow." She threw his coat at him. "Now get out of here. I'll see you tomorrow."

Scene

Olivia opened her eyes to a bright light. Elliot was there, standing next to her.  
"Liv, you're awake. Do you want to see him?"

She didn't answer him, but he walked away and came back with a bundle of blankets. He held the bundle close to her face, "Liv it's a boy."

She looked at the bundle and inside was a scarred face smiling and snarling at her, "I'm you're trophy now, forever and ever, detective Benson. Touch me. Touch me Bitch."

Olivia shot up in her bed. She was sweating and breathing heavily. It was only a dream. She sat in the dark calming herself down. She was sweating, but her whole body was cold. The door to her bathroom was open and she could see the nightlight inside flickering. A flash of the mocking bird burned in her memory. All of the sudden she heard a thumping coming from the kitchen. She went to grab for her gun, but it was gone. "Damn it, it's in the kitchen.", she thought. Quickly she searched for the bat under her bed and slowly inched her way to the bathroom and closed the door. Then she walked into the living room and peaked into the kitchen. The window was still open from earlier. She shivered as she closed it and the thumping that her blinds were making went away. She opened the drawer that her gun was in and took it back to bed with her. Every time she closed her eyes the memories of her rape kept coming back. "Don't do this again.", she told herself. She tried to read but her mind wouldn't focus on the words. She thought about the Lacey/ Sparelli case and decided to call Elliot.

Elliot groggily answered the phone, "Somebody better be dead."

"Grace Sparelli."

"Liv, it's 4am why are we talking about Grace Sparelli?"

"I can't sleep and I just realized why Grace Sparelli is dead. Joseph had cancer when we investigated him for murder last year. He's looking for someone to take over for him when he dies. Alonzo Sparelli's family was killed last year in the fire. So the next in line would be Michael. Someone didn't want Michael to be the head of their little operation and he knew that. They found Michael's identity when Grace did that movie."

"Yes, I know all of this, because we interrogated Joseph after you called us. He's not spilling anything. Why am I telling you this?"

"What happened at the Linda Hurtz address?"

"Olivia, I'm not talking about this with you. You are not aloud to work on this case. Period. Go to sleep."

"Elliot, I can't."

"You can't what?"

"I can't sleep."

"Talk to me. Why can't you sleep?"

There was a pause.

Elliot really wanted her to just be open with him, "You're never going to get back to work if you don't start talking to people about your problems."

She didn't want to talk about it, but she knew it was what she needed to do. For the next hour she told Elliot all of the gory details and fears in her mind. After she got it all out she sleepily said, "Elliot, I love you.", and fell into a deep sleep.


	7. One Night Only

One Night Only 

Elliot slammed the door to the interrogation room, where Joseph Sparelli and his lawyer sat behind a table answering Hector Iglacious' questions.

"Hector, get the hell outta here." Elliot throws some pictures and a bank statement on the table.

"Joseph, you lied to me. We talked to Alaina, your son's first wife. She was more then kind enough to give us all the evidence we need to put you in jail for kidnapping and aiding 4 homicides."

"Alright, I paid her to divorce my son. She was a crook and a whore. I didn't need my son to be tied up in her affairs. What does this have to do with my son and his unfortunate turn of events?"

Elliot's vein in his forehead started to pulse. "You know exactly what this has to do with you're son." He picked up a picture of a baby.

"Yeah, so. That's my grandson Gino. He died of heart failure when he was one."

"That's not what Alaina told me. She told me that the death was made up to protect him from you. You needed him to be the next leader to your dirty business and when you found out they were taking him away that's when you paid her off. It's all in this bank statement."

"Yes, so shouldn't you be going after her? She's the bitch that left her son and Michael. She has more reason to kill my son's family than I do."

Elliot stood up and walked around the table, "Yeah I thought that too. Until, I found his DNA under Ellen Lacey's fingernails. Now how does that happen, Joe?"

Joseph defensively yelled back, "I don't know what you're talking about. I haven't seen that boy in 20 years and this is the first I even knew he was breathing."

Joseph's lawyer butted in, "Joseph shut your mouth. Detective, this is absurd. You're making up stories based on what this woman is saying. Did you ever think that my client was paying her alimony? It's her word against his. Find us some evidence that links my client to Gino and we'll talk then."

"Nobody pays their ex-wife over one million in alimony a year. Here's the kicker Joe, Alaina tells us that her son is alive and working for you. You tell me what you did to your grandson and maybe we'll find Michael with a heart beat."

"Where's my deal?"

"The deal is you get to die at home instead of in the cell I'm gonna put you in."

Joseph and his lawyer talk it over.

"Gino came to me two years ago looking for his father. I didn't want him to contact my Michael, so I shipped him to Mexico to work in my warehouses. I haven't seen him since."

"And have you contacted your warehouses in Mexico to account for his where abouts?"

"Do you think I'm a moron Detective? Of course I did. He's missing."

"So where is he Sparelli?"

The old man crossed his arms and furrowed his brow, "If I knew that, do you think I would be sitting here?"

Elliot pushed the table and walked out of the room. "Hector, find Alaina we need her here now."

Elliot was exhausted. He was tired of dealing with people who would only tell him half of the story and expected full results.

Cragen came up to him as he yawned, "Elliot, why don't you take off and I'll have Fin take over for you?"

"No way. I have to talk to that woman. She knows me. She's gonna talk and she's gonna talk tonight. I'm tired of this bullshit. Ring around the illegal money game."

Cragen handed him a coffee, "After her interrogation I want you out of here."

After another 5 hours on the job Elliot couldn't get a straight answer from Alaina or Joseph. Elliot felt like he was starting at page one. He sat at his desk going over all of the facts and evidence again when Casey walked in.

"Hey El, you look beat, we're going out for drinks. You coming?"

He didn't even look up at her, "naw, I've got to figure this out."

"How's Liv doing?"

"She's good." Elliot just realized he hadn't talked to her all day. "What time is it?"

"It's 9 o'clock. Sure you don't need a drink?"

"No, but Casey can I ask you something serious?"

"You just did."

"No really. If a guy asked you out on a date where would you want to go?"

"If this is about Hector I am seriously not interested."

"No, it's not for Hector."

"Oh." Casey said with a sly smile on her face. "I see. Well, if I know women, especially your kind of woman, I'd say she would love a night on Broadway. I hear "Jersey Boys" is amazing. And there's a new fondue place called Artisanal that she'll love. It's very sexy. Oh, and we went shopping the other day and she tried on this dress. Oh my god, it was beautiful. You have to get her this dress and surprise her with it. It was at Macy's. Size 8. Should I be writing this down for you? "

Elliot was staring in utter confusion, but she kept on going.

"Do you have a pin stripped suite?" She paused and looked at him. "No, of course, you don't. Just stick to black and white." When she was finished writing down all of the information spewing out of her mouth she quickly glanced at her watch. "I have to go. Oh and El, your secrets safe with me." She winked at him and off she went.

Elliot looked at the paper and let out a long loud sigh.

Scene

Olivia hadn't seen Elliot in three days. He was spending every waking hour at the precinct trying to bust the Sparelli mob. She sat in front of her small Casio keyboard and plucked at the keys. Just as she was about to finish the last chord of "Amazing Grace" the buzzer at her door rang loudly. Downstairs was a deliveryman with a box.

"Got a package for Olivia Benson from an Elliot Stabler."

"That's me."

The pimple-faced guy handed her the electronic clipboard and said, "Sign here."

When she got back to her apartment she ripped open the box and found the beautiful black and white dress from Macy's inside. The card read "Dear Liv, I hope you like the dress. I'll be by your place at 5. Be ready for a real date. Your Partner in Crime, El."

She ran to her bedroom and jumped on the bed. She couldn't believe he actually did something like this. It was so out of his element. She immediately called Casey.

"Casey, how did a certain man know that I wear a size eight in a Ruby Rox dress?"

"I don't know Liv. How is that you're actually speaking about this whole very risky topic with me over the phone?"

"Oh Casey, come on. I know you're not blind."

"Yes but lets' keep pretending I am. I'll meet you for coffee sometime during the week and we can catch up in person. I'm kind of in the middle of something."

Olivia hung up the phone and looked at the clock. She had 2 hours to get ready.

Scene

Elliot knocked on the door to Olivia's apartment and then let himself in. "Hey, Liv I'm here."

She was in the bathroom, "Give me a sec. I'll be right out."

Elliot stood by the door in his very sharp suit holding a single purple lily. He was excited and nervous. He felt like an old man. Dating again just seemed weird. The last time he remembered, dating was a lot less expensive, but he wanted to impress Olivia tonight, so he didn't mind going all out for her.

Olivia walked out of her bedroom looking like a bombshell from a classic movie. She spun around in her new dress and smiled, "You've got great taste Elliot Stabler."

"You've got observant friends, Ms. Benson." and he handed her the lily. "I remembered you said lily's were your favorite."

"How are you? I haven't seen you in a few days."

"I closed the case. Well, technically Hector and I closed the case, but if it weren't for you, we might still be at stage one. So lets celebrate." He took her hand and led her to their golden chariot through New York City, the yellow cab.

Scene

Elliot had never eaten fondue before so when the menu came and their options were all served with cheese he wasn't sure what to order. He cleared his throat, "Ok, I have to be honest I'm not sure I know what's good here. Do you have any suggestions?"

"Yeah, let me order for you."

"Please do."

The main course came and Elliot grabbed the long thin fork to eat his filet mignon with.

Olivia laughed.

Elliot paused, "What? Am I doing it wrong?"

"No, you just look funny holding that tiny fork."

He scrunched his eyebrows down and gave her a pondering look. "I would have brought my own fork, but it wouldn't fit on this tiny table."

"Let me see it?" Olivia asked as she grabbed for his fork. "You have to dip it in the sauce or it's just not fondue." She took the fork with his meat on it and dipped it into the pot. Slowly she fed him a piece.

With his mouth full he said, "So this is supposed to be sexy eating? That's what I was told anyway."

She smiled "Yeah, now you feed me."

He dipped her fork in the pot and got close to her mouth. She slowly opened her lips revealing part of her top teeth. Her mouth was pouty and her eyes were slightly closed. Elliot placed the food in her mouth. She chewed, swallowed, and licked her upper lip as she starred into his eyes.

"Ok, that was pretty sexy."

The rest of their night went smoothly. Olivia was feeling like a woman again. They were both laughing and enjoying their lives. Elliot fit just right, right next to her.

Scene

After the show let out Elliot got a call from Munch. "Elliot, we just got a call. Joseph has taken hostage, Alaina Sparelli. Joe wants to talk to you."

"Ok where are they?"

"They're at Alaina's house. We've got back up on their way."

"I'll be there as soon as I can." Elliot grabbed Olivia's hand and hailed a cab.

"What's going on?" Olivia said.

"We've got a hostage situation. I knew that old bastard had his hands in this, but when we found the grandson there was only enough evidence to convict him."

"Did you ever find Michael Sparelli?"

"No, it was too late. Gino killed them all. He was going to be the next in line. Michael was forced to marry Alaina to keep a bond between the Sparelli's and the Bodichello's. When Michael backed out on his end of the deal Joseph had to keep the peace by kidnapping Gino and raising him like his own. Michael kept two identities to keep Joseph and his brothers in the dark about his business. One identity was to make the Sparelli's think they were poor and living in the Bronx, and the other was to have a relationship with the Sparelli's enemies. Michael was doing business with the competition. Gino found Grace in this movie and tracked them down. The rest is history."

The cab pulled up to Alaina's condo, "I guess back up isn't here yet. You stay in the cab, Liv. I'm gonna go check it out."

"No, I'll come." She pulled a handgun from her purse.

Elliot gave her a look.

"What, I'm a cop. You have to carry one."

"Alright fine. Let's go."

They entered the condo. Elliot was first. "Joe? Alaina? You here?"

They heard thumping above them and Olivia nodded upward to the stairs. Cautiously they crept up the staircase and at the end of the hall they saw a room with the lights on. Elliot motioned for Olivia to stay behind.

"Joe, are you here?

"Elliot?" Joe was in the room breathing heavily with a gun to Aliana's head.

"Joe what's going on? This isn't going to solve your problems."

"Put the gun down detective."

Slowly he dropped the gun to the floor.

The old man got closer to him and Olivia had a clear shot of him.

"Detective, I need you to release Gino. I'll go to jail for his charges. I'm the one that told him to do it."

"Joe you know I have no control over that."

"Yes, you do. Now make me a deal and I'll let this bitch walk out the door." His hand shook and Alaina whimpered at the thought of having her head blown off.

"Listen Joe, I can see what my ADA can do, but you're going to have to cooperate by letting her go."

Just then a swap team slammed through the door downstairs and Joe's hand slipped on the trigger causing the life to spew from Alaina's body. Joe aimed the gun at Elliot.

Elliot backed up a bit. "Joe what are doing? We can't make a deal if you kill me."

"You said you couldn't make me a deal anyway."

"I didn't say I couldn't. I said we'd have to talk about it with people of the right authority."

"Well get me those people, now."

"Ok, I'm going to get my cell phone and call my Captain. We'll figure this all out."

Elliot reached into his pocket and Joe's gun went off a second time. Olivia screamed, "Elliot, no!" She fired two shots at Joe and he went down in a heap. Olivia fell down next to Elliot's body and placed pressure on the hole in his chest. "Elliot stay with me. You're gonna be ok."

His eyes blinked and he started to cough. The paramedics came rushing in and Olivia backed away as they took him to the ambulance. She ran down the stairs behind them. "Elliot, I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere. If you can hear me stay strong."

She hopped into the ambulance with him and watched as the paramedics jammed tubes down his throat and pumped his heart. They got to the hospital and she stood in the hallway watching him go further away towards the ER. Her face was in shock and her dress was covered in blood.


	8. Breathe

Melinda Warner and Munch entered the hospital room and saw Olivia curled up in a ball on a chair next to Elliot's bed. She was in a deep sleep and holding Elliot's hand. Her hair was messed up and she wore some scrubs that the nurses gave to her.

"She's been here for 3 days." Melinda whispered to Munch.

Munch grabbed a blanket from a closet next to the bathroom and gently placed it around Olivia.

"Any sign of life from Elliot?" Munch asked Melinda as he watched the machine monitoring Elliot's heart.

"Nothing yet. They said he's going to be out of it for a few days. He lost a lot of blood. I keep checking in every chance I get. Liv's been holding in quite well, but you can never tell with her."

"She's too proud."

"Yeah, but how much more can she handle? I don't know how you guys do it." Melinda said with a sigh.

Olivia's arm fell from Elliot's hand and she jerked awake. "Elliot?"

"It's just us Liv." Munch said.

"Oh." She said through a yawn. "Did I miss anything?"

Melinda grabbed the blanket that fell to the floor, "No darlin. How you feeling?"

"I'm fine. What time is it?"

"It's 6am. You hungry? We could go get some food. There's nothing like a good old hospital meal to start the day on." Munch said with a smile.

Olivia starred at Elliot in thought.

"Or we could bring you something back." Munch said as if he were speaking to a wall.

"Yeah, let's go get food. I need to stand." Olivia eventually replied as she stood.

John motioned to the door and Olivia and Melinda lead the way.

Scene

Olivia walked back to the room after she finished her breakfast. As she neared the nurse's station the woman behind the desk motioned to her, "Olivia, Elliot's awake."

"He is? Of course he is." She ran down the hallway and walked through the door. "Ellio-" Olivia stopped in her tracks.

The nurse stood on one side of him checking his breathing machine and all of his vital signs. Kathy and the kids were all standing on the other side. Kathy was holding Elliot's hand. She looked up at Olivia and Olivia's heart stopped. The kids had been in and out of the hospital since the incident, but this was the first time she saw Kathy in years. "Hi guys, you're up early. Kathy, hi." Olivia said after taking everything in.

"Hi Olivia." Kathy half-heartedly smiled and looked back down at Elliot.

Dickie stood over Elliot's head. "Dad, Livi's here."

Elliot blinked his eyes and attempted a smile through the tube on his breathing machine.

Kathy squeezed Elliot's hand, "Well we should probably wait outside. Daddy needs some breathing space. "

She picked up her purse and headed towards the door.

"You don't have to leave. I can go get some coffee or something. Let the kids be with their father." Olivia said to Kathy.

Kathy glared at Olivia. Her stare was enough to send knives into Olivia's face. "Oh no Olivia, you should stay. He should be with the people he likes to surround himself with. We'll come back later."

"Ok." Olivia said softly.

Kathy nodded and left taking Dickie, Elizabeth, and Kathleen with her.

Maureen remained next to the bed. Elliot squeezed Maureen's hand and reached out his other hand towards Olivia. Maureen watched as her dad's face light up to see Olivia. Olivia slowly walked over and grabbed Elliot's hand. He looked up at her and winked. Olivia kissed the back of his hand softly. She glanced over at Maureen who stood with a stone face.

Olivia felt out of place, but she threw on a smile for Elliot's sake, "Good morning, sunshine. You're looking good."

He raised an eyebrow at her and rolled his eyes as if to say, "Don't patronize me."

The nurse touched Olivia's arm, "We're going to have to take him to another room for the doctor to look at him. He'll be back in an hour or so."

Olivia nodded.

"Is he going to be ok?" Maureen asked.

"If we can keep infection out of his lungs he should be fine. We'll see what the doctor says," The nurse said before rolling his bed towards the door.

Maureen kissed him on the cheek, "Love you Dad."

As the bed rolled away Olivia rubbed Maureen's back and she pulled away from her to stand alone by the window. Olivia watched her and was reminded of Elliot. They both had the same stubborn temper tantrums. Olivia and Maureen stood in silence for what seemed to be an eternity. Maureen sniffled every now and again.

"Maureen, it's ok to be upset. Do you want to talk about it?"

"With you? No."

"Ok, that's fair enough. Can I talk about something with you?"

"I don't care what you do."

"Your dad is a good man. He's not trying to upset you. He's been struggling with depression and anger for some time now. I'm sure seeing him with other women is the last thing you want to see, but you have to understand that he's just trying to move on and be happy."

"I don't see how dating is going to help him move on. We can make him happy. He just chooses to be unhappy."

"You know, I remember when my mom started dating. I hated it. She would bring home men from the bar and they would try to butter me up. I use to feel like they were trying so hard to make me like them, so that they could get closer to my mother. Some men would stay longer then others. Some of them beat her. Some of them only wanted her for sex. But out of all the men, I remember there was one guy that I really liked. Nobody would have known that by the way I treated him. He probably never knew that. I was 13 when my mom started dating him. He was genuine and kind. He took us places and bought us gifts. I will never forget the trip to the amusement park he took us to. I road a roller coaster for the first time. My mother stopped drinking. I thought he was going to marry my mom and that scared me. I didn't want a dad. I was used to being in charge at home. I did everything I could to get him to leave. I was rude to him. I would ignore him when he asked me questions. I even destroyed one of the presents he gave me to make him angry. Then one night I came home and found him and my mom in the living room fighting. He was trying to break up with her. She was drunk. When he left she told me it was my fault and then she slapped me. It was the first time she ever hit me. After that, things went back to normal, but they weren't better. I found myself wishing that I had allowed myself to change. It took me a long time to stop blaming myself for the choices my mother made."

Maureen was looking at the floor, "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I want you to know that your father and mother have made choices that you don't like or understand, but none of those choices are under your control and none of them are your fault. Sometimes the hardest choices are the right choices. You're father was devastated for years about breaking your family up. Don't you think he deserves some happiness? Don't you want to just release this cloud on your shoulder?"

Maureen snapped her head towards Olivia and looked her in the eyes, "Of course I want my father to be happy. And you know nothing about my cloud. How would you know what happiness is. You're the one who messed everything up."

"Maureen, I don't know who or what made you believe that I caused your parents to break up, but it's just not true. Marriage is a serious bond. I would never put myself in a situation that messed with that bond. Ever."

"Oh, please, just because you didn't act upon it doesn't mean you didn't get in the way. He constantly talked about you."

"We work together. I'm sure if I was a guy named Bob you would have heard about Bob all of the time, too. "

"So you're telling me that over all the years you two worked together you just now decided to be attracted to each other?"

Olivia didn't really know what to say to that. She was right in a way. Olivia always found Elliot to be the kind of guy she wanted to be with. She even remembered dumping some of her good boyfriends because they just couldn't compare to the things that Elliot provided for her. Finally she replied, "Well, you know, if I told you that I never found your father attractive until recently I would be lying, but I never made my thoughts apparent. Your father and I have been through a lot of heinous situations together. We've put our lives on the line for each other. We're best friends. We could both be fired for even having these thoughts and that scares me every time we're together. And, no, we didn't start out as two people who care for each other the way we do today, but things change. Maureen, I never wanted to hurt you or your family. I'm really sorry if I did, but right now your father is going to need all of us to help him get better. He needs your support. He wants you to be happy. Can you tell me how I can help you?"

Maureen started crying and Olivia stood beside her and placed her arm around her shoulder. Gently Olivia said to her, "You know I would never try to take your father away from you. Without you guys he's an empty shell. Can we call a truce?"

Maureen wrapped her arms around Olivia tightly, "I'm sorry Liv. I didn't mean to-"

"Shhh. It's ok. I would have felt the same way. It's ok."

Olivia and Maureen both shed a few tears and laughed off their awkwardness. Suddenly there was a vibrating sound coming from the corner of the room. Olivia found her red phone moving in the corner and answered it, "Benson."

"Hey, Liv, it's Cragen. How are you?"

"I'm fine."

"Just fine?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"I kinda need your help. Can you work today?"

"Yes. Please. How soon do you need me?"

"I need you now. Can you go to the 3rd floor? There's a rape victim there. He just came in."

"He?"

"Yeah, victim is Jason Halgrin."

"Ok I'm on top of it."

She flipped the phone closed. "Maur, can you call me if anything changes?"

"Yeah. I'll see you later."

"Thanks." She smiled and left.

Scene

Jason sat on a hospital bed next to his wife. His face was bruised and swollen. His wife was crying and holding his hand. Olivia walked in with her scrubs on and her badge.

"Hi. Jason Halgrin?"

"Yeah", he said in a deep voice.

"I'm detective Olivia Benson. I was told that you wanted to report a rape."

"Jenny wants to report a rape. I want to go home."

His wife Jenny stood up, "Jason, you have to do this. That man is going to do this to other people. He needs to be caught."

Olivia butted in, "Jenny were you with him when this happened?"

"No I was in the grocery store and Jason was smoking outside while I shopped. When I got out of the store I couldn't find him and I drove around the building. He was lying on the ground, passed out, and his pants were down. Oh god, this is so awful. If he did this to my husband what do you think he could do to a woman." She started to get hysterical.

Olivia took her by the arm and headed towards the door, "Jenny, can you wait outside. I need to talk to your husband privately."

"Yeah"

"Thanks."

Jenny left and Olivia closed the door.

"Can you describe what happened?"

"Not really. I was smoking and a woman asked me to help her lift a bag of kitty litter into her car. The next thing I know something smacked me on the head and I woke up behind the building with my pants down and my face all beat up."

"What did the woman look like?"

"She was in her 30's maybe. She had brown hair and a great set of tits. I mean, boobs or breasts."

Olivia raised her eyebrow and cleared her throat, "And did you notice anything else?"

"She had on a tight black skirt and a red top with the straps on the shoulders. She was in good shape."

"What kind of car did she have?"

"I don't know. We never actually made it to the car."

"What is the last thing you remember?"

"We walked to the last aisle of cars and then I remember nothing."

"Would you mind giving a description of this woman to the sketch artist?"

"I guess not."

"If you don't feel comfortable doing it today we can do it another time, but the quicker you do it the better you'll be able to remember all of the details."

"Yeah, well I just want to forget this ever happened."

"I understand. Why don't you get changed and I'll send someone by before you leave. Thanks."

Jason nodded and Olivia went to speak with the Doctors.

Scene

Olivia walked in the forensics lab to find Melinda going over some charts.

"Melinda, what can you tell me about Jason Halgrin?"

Melinda turned to find Olivia in her scrubs. "Don't they allow you to go home and shower before they send you out?"

"I think they're a little swamped. I'm going to stop by my place after I finish getting some info from you."

"Good cause I was starting to wonder if you still had an apartment." She smiled and pulled out the file filled with Jason Halgrin's lab tests. "Ok, so Mr. Halgrin, was raped, but not by a man. He had traces of skin from a banana and then something that was metal. The other thing that I found was your victim's sperm all over the front of him."

"So are you saying he could have been rapping the woman he was helping?"

"It's possible. I mean, if anything they were having sex and it was consensual. The only other way to make a man ejaculate is to probe him, but there were no signs of probing."

"Great, so he's lying to me. He was having sex with that woman."

"Yes, but someone did hit him from behind. I found some glass in his head wound. I'd say he was knocked out with a glass bottle."

"Good. Thanks this is helpful."

Scene

Olivia was feeling good about officially being back on the job. She especially liked the distraction it gave her from all of the stress in her life. She called the Captain and they took Jason in for interrogation. Her heart was racing with excitement and nerves as she walked into the room for the first time in over a month.

"So Jason, tell me again what happened while you waited outside the grocery store?"

"I already told you. I had a smoke and I helped Megan to her car."

"Megan? She has a name now?"

"Well she told me her name when she came up to me for help."

"Yeah, Jason see that's the kind of inconsistencies we've found all over your story. Did you and Megan have sex?"

"What?! No. I'm married. Why would I do that?"

"Because she had…Oh what did you call them…" Olivia threw a picture taken from the grocery store security camera at him. "Great tits. Is that what I remember you calling them? If you were helping this woman to her car then why did you go to the side of the building?"

The picture was of Jason and the woman, Megan, walking around the building. Jason threw the picture down.

"Ok. Ok she told me I looked cute and one thing led to another. We went to the side of the building and we did it. But I swear I never knew her before that conversation. I didn't tell you cause I didn't want my wife to know."

"Nice. So do you do this kind of thing often?"

"What?! No. I don't know why I did it. What can I say; we had a lot in common. I was being stupid."

"Did you have common interests or did you have your own agenda?"

"Are you saying you think I raped her?"

"Jason, right now the evidence is looking that way, now I need to know all of the facts this time. What happened before you blacked out?"

Jason pulled at his hair and sighed, "She asked me why I was so lonely looking and told me she just had her breasts done. She kept asking me sexual questions like if I liked them. What was I suppose to do? I'd like to see any man in his right mind ignore her. I didn't force her into anything. She was the one who provoked me. She asked me if I wanted to see them and before I knew it we were behind the building. We did it and when I finished someone behind me smashed something against my head. That's all I remember. It's the truth this time."

"Ok. Thanks." Olivia got up and left the room. Cragen was behind the mirror.

"Nice work, Liv. You think he's telling the truth?"

"Unfortunately yes and we don't really have anything to keep him on. I have to find out who this mystery woman is. She had to have left her prints on something."

"I'll let this guy go. You got a new partner waiting for you. Take him with you and find me some evidence. "

Olivia's mind immediately flashed to Elliot. She walked slowly to her desk and images of the shooting stuck to her brain like a bad nightmare.

"Excuse me, are you Olivia Benson?"

Olivia looked up to see a tall thin dorky looking guy in his early twenties with bright blonde hair standing in front of her. "Yeah, who wants to know?"

"I'm Craig Garner. I'm you're new partner. It's my first day." Craig held out his hand.

Olivia shook it with a puzzled look on her face. "Nice to meet you." She looked at him and then at the empty desk in front of her.

"Are you all right Ms. Benson?"

"Yeah. Call me Olivia." She grabbed her coat off of the chair. "Uh, come on we've got to check out a crime scene."

Craig followed like a young puppy, "Great! This is so exciting. I read the reports already it's a pretty juicy case, but not as juicy as the cases you're probably use to."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Oh well when I got the call for the job I did all my research. You're famous for putting away so many of the big serial killers in the past ten years. I mean, there was the DKA serial killer and then John Rusher. What's it like to interrogate a killer like that?"

Olivia stopped in her tracks and angrily replied, "Craig, if we're going to seriously work together I need you never to ask me questions like that again. You got that?"

Craig stood stock-still and shook his head, "Sure. Yeah. I'll never bring it up again. Anything you say. You are so worthy."

Olivia closed her eyes hoping the kid in front of her would disappear, but he didn't, so off they went. Craig talked none stop the whole time. He had more topics of conversation then a room full of old Jewish men.

Scene

After a long long long day of dealing with the new-be at work Olivia walked through the hospital doors to find Elliot asleep. She stood in the doorway watching him breath. He didn't have the breathing machine on anymore, so she figured he must have been doing well. Quietly she placed her things to the side and crawled in the hospital bed next to him. She placed her head lightly on the side of his chest. He took in deep breaths of air and his fingers twitched like he was having a dream. "Ruff day at work?"

Olivia jumped a bit. "Huh?!" She let out all of the air in her chest and replied, "You scared me."

"I'm good at that." Elliot said gently.

Olivia rested against him again, "You sure are."

He hugged her with his other arm. "Maureen told me you were at work."

"Yep."

"Bad day?"

She sat up and kissed him on the cheek, "Let's not talk about it. I want to know how you are."

He looked into her eyes and touched her hair, "I'm alive."


	9. Balance

**Hi, I'm not sure if any of you are still interested in this story, but I've got more ideas to add to it. I've been rewriting and making changes. I put a little spin on this chapter with Olivia's new partner. I hope it's not too "predictable comedy." Also, I'm going to give everyone a heads up that this chapter is probably an M rating. So I give you all full warning. Parents don't hurt me. Let me know what you think and if you have ideas on improvements on my writing please drop them my way. I am using this fun fiction as a learning experience, so let me know what I need to work on and let me know what you love. **

**Peace Out**

**Scarlett**

Balance

The Special Victim's Unit squad room was unusually quiet for a Tuesday afternoon. Olivia walked in with Casey on her arm. They had just got back from lunch. Olivia was laughing as Casey told her about the date she had with a lawyer who liked costumes in bed. "Then I took the wig off and he lost it. It was like a scared turtle. That's when I knew I had to stop screwing men with a small-"

"Good afternoon, partner." Craig said as he stood holding a file and a cup of coffee for Olivia to take.

"Briefcase." Casey ended.

"Casey Novak?! Hi, I'm Craig Garner. I've been dieing to meet you. I've read and heard so much about you. You are the best ADA in the city according to the New York Times."

Casey looked at Olivia. Olivia sighed and hunched her shoulders a bit, "My new partner."

"Oh, good. Say, when did Cragen start recruiting from Best Buy?"

Olivia shook her head and held back a laugh.

Casey flipped her hair to the side and waved to Olivia, "I'll see you later, Liv."

"Thanks Casey." Olivia said and then smiled with a hint of annoyance towards Craig.

"You know, I know a lot of guys that work at Best Buy who are very intelligent people. And they make a nice salary too." Craig spattered on as he followed Olivia around the office.

Olivia ignored him and sifted through the messages on her desk.

"So you two are good friends then huh? She probably helps you out when you're in a pickle. That's good to know. You know, I didn't realize how tall she was. How tall do you think she is? 5'8? 5'9?"

Olivia's head was pounding from his constant yammering of idiotic questions. "Garner! Would you please shut up for two minutes?! Can you just not speak to me for 2 whole minutes, while I sort through my paper work? Please."

Craig backed up and nodded "Sure."

Olivia sat at her desk as he ran to his desk and sat down at the same time she did. Olivia ran her fingers through her hair and stretched. Craig yawned loudly and started writing up some reports. He clicked a pen slowly every time he stopped to think. Olivia typed on her keyboard and paused. "_Click, click, click", _went the pen. Olivia typed. "_Click, click, click"_ Craig snorted and made a chuckle towards Olivia. She gave him a look of rage and he quickly put his head back into his notes. Olivia typed and read. "_Click, click, click"_

"Ok, give me the god damn pen." She ripped the pen out of Craig's hand and threw it in the wastebasket. She grabbed the keys off of her desk and placed them in Craig's hand. "Here, go see if the lab has any prints for our Megan mystery shopper."

"Aren't you supposed to come with me?" Craig replied.

"Just go." She yelled.

Craig shot up and ran out the door.

Fin was sitting across from her and he started to giggle.

"Don't even start with me Fin. I'm really not in the mood."

"All I have to say is that I'm glad my partner has moved on to Depends."

Olivia threw him a look.

Fin laughed, "Get it Depends. Diapers."

"Yeah, I got it Fin and I'm still not laughing."

Munch came from the filing cabinet and threw a stack of files on his desk. "Oh come on Liv, he's not that bad. He knows intelligent people at Best Buy."

Olivia laughed. "I'm losing my mind."

Fin threw an envelope at her, "Ah, Liv, don't get soft on us. You have a big case to close."

She picked up the envelope and opened it, "What's this?"

"Jenny Halgrin's fingerprints. Melinda dropped them by an hour ago. They were all over the glass you found near the building." Fin said as he walked towards the bathroom.

"How long were you gonna keep these from me?" Olivia cried.

"Long enough to entertain myself." He replied with a skip in his step and a smile on his face.

Munch winked at her and dug into the files on his desk. "Consider it a welcome back present."

Scene

Elliot sat in a wheel chair thumping his foot and checking his watch for the tenth time.

"I'm really sorry, Lillian. It's not like my girls to be late. You can go back to your job. I'll just sit here and wait."

The little Asian nurse standing behind him poked her head around to look him in the eye, "Are you sure Mr. Eriot?"

"Yeah Lillian thanks. I'll call you if I need a push."

"Oh Mr. Eriot, you are such a yokster. I gonna miss you."

"And I'll miss you too riria-Lillian."

She smiled and toddled away.

Elliot phoned Olivia.

"Benson."

"Liv, Maureen and Kathleen were suppose to take me home from the hospital today, but they're not here and they're not answering their phones. Can you stop by on one of your breaks and pick me up?"

"That's odd. Are they ok?"

"Who knows. I've done everything a man with a bleeding heart can do. I just need to get in my bed."

"I'm actually in the neighborhood. We'll swing by to pick you up."

Scene

Ten minutes later Olivia rolled Elliot towards the squad car.

"You know, Liv, I can walk to the car. My legs aren't injured."

"Yeah but you're lungs are and I'm kind of in a hurry. Just sit tight."

Olivia rushed around the car to the passenger's side and pulled Craig out. "You, get in the back."

"Me? Why do I have to sit in the back? I'm your partner."

"Just do it."

Elliot moved like a robot from the hips up. He sat in the front seat and turned into the car without moving his chest or shoulders. Olivia hopped in the drivers seat and turned on the squad car sirens. "Elliot, we have to make two quick stops and you'll be in your bed watching MASH before you know it."

"Liv, you didn't have to do this right now. I could have called someone else or waited until your break."

"It's fine. We were right down the street."

Craig poked his head between the two of them. "You must be the guy we hear so much about. Hi, I'm Craig Garner. I'm Olivia's partner. Just so you know. " Elliot gave him a dirty look and Craig continued as usual, "You're a big guy. You must work out? I've never been shot before what's that like?"

"I'm going to show you what it's like if you don't stop running your yap." Olivia barked as she sped through the traffic.

Elliot wiped his mouth to try and hide the laugh from forming on his face.

"How much coffee have you had today, Liv?"

"Not enough." Olivia slammed on the breaks and got out of the car. "Craig. Now."

Craig jumped out and followed her to the doorway of the Halgrin's apartment. Olivia beat on the door with her fist. Jenny Halgrin opened it. Her face was bruised like she'd been beaten. "Detectives, haven't you badgered my husband enough?"

"I don't know Jenny, why don't you answer that question for me. What happened to your face?" Olivia asked.

"I…I fell into a parked car on my roller blades."

Craig pushed Olivia out of the way, "Really that's awful. You're very lucky you didn't hurt your wrist. I fell on my roller blades once and both of my wrists were broken. But it doesn't look like you even got a scratch on your arms. That's always nice since using your arms is such an important thing. With the eating and the going to the bathroom-"

Olivia grabbed Craig by the back of his shirt and pulled him to the side, "Jenny, you're going to have to come in with us and answer a few questions."

"What are you talking about?"

Craig pulled out the fingerprints and the shoe prints from the scene of the crime, "It's all here Mrs. Halgrin. Now if you'll kindly step outside we can take you in and read you your rights."

Olivia cuffed Jenny and took her to the car while Craig blabbered on about the right to remain silent and all that Jazz.

Jenny was out of control on the car ride to the station. "This is ridiculous. Just because my fingerprints were on a bottle doesn't mean that I did anything. I was frantically helping my husband. He's not a light man. I'm sure I touched the ground around him several times."

Craig sat next to Jenny in the backseat. He faced her and took in her rant carefully. "Mrs. Halgrin, the procedures at the SVU are only in the interest of the victim, which in this case, under the report your husband gave us, would be your husband. We're only doing our job."

Elliot closed his eyes and tried to ignore the noise in the backseat.

"I want a lawyer. Don't I get to make a phone call."

Olivia threw her phone in the backseat. "Make the call. If you don't have a lawyer we can provide you with one."

Craig jumped when the phone hit him on the knee, "Oh dear. Jennifer. May I call you Jennifer?"

"My name is Jenny thank you very much and I'd appreciate it if you didn't call me anything. I want to go home."

"Jenny, those earrings are lovely. Where did you get them?"

"What? I don't know."

"Does your husband shop at Jan's Jewlers on 4th and 16th st?"

Jenny grabbed at her ear, "No. He didn't buy them for me. I found them. I don't know. Will somebody just get me to where we're going so that I can explain myself?"

Elliot took a deep breath and lightly touched Olivia's hand. Olivia was so stressed that she didn't even feel him. Elliot could see the wrinkle that she got above her nose when she's upset or thinking to hard and all he could think about was kissing her. He loved that wrinkle. She pulled her hand away suddenly to turn the wheel and pull the car to the front of the precinct.

"Craig, out of the car I need to speak to you."

They got out and she pulled him to the side. "Take her up to a room, make her comfortable, and wait until I get back. I'll only be 15 minutes. Do not, under any circumstances start without me. You got it?"

Craig smiled and took Jenny up to the squad room.

Olivia got back in the car and drove towards Elliot's house.

Elliot sat like a statue in the front seat. "Looks like you've got your hands full."

Olivia let out a sigh, "Yeah. The transition has been difficult to say the least. I'm getting a little scared. I mean, what's going to happen when we're in a dangerous situation? I can't even imagine him with a gun in his hand let alone being able to control a hostile perp."

"Liv, Cragen knows how to hire good detectives. I'm sure there's a reason for him getting the job."

"Yeah, his reason is to annoy the hell out of me."

Elliot laughed, "I almost lost it when you said you were gonna shoot him."

"You think it's funny, but I'm not sure it's very far from the truth. Ah, whatever I'm just glad I'm working again and I'm really glad to see you right here next to me." She leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"Alright Detective Benson, settle down or I'll have to arrest you."

"Ooo should I call my lawyer?"

"Only if she's hot."

They smiled at each other and Elliot rubbed her knee with his hand. She pulled up to his building, threw the hazard lights on, and helped him into his apartment. They walked down a shabby looking hallway and to a door that looked like it had been shot at and possibly kicked in a couple of times.

"You live here?"

Elliot messed with the keys to find the right one, "Hey, I have four child support payments and a kid in college. This is all I could afford."

"Point taken."

They walked into Elliot's tiny apartment. It was one room with a bed, a stove, a tiny refrigerator, and a television on cinderblocks.

"Welcome to my linen closet."

"Wow, this makes my place look like the Hilton."

Olivia carried Elliot's hospital bag to a corner and started to clean off Elliot's bed.

"Liv, don't' do that. I'll get it. You need to get to work."

"You have some serious feng shui issues in here, El. We need to get you a picture or some color or something. "

"Ah, I'm never here. There's no need for color."

Elliot's phone started to ring. "Maureen. Where the hell have you been? I waited for 2 hours."

Olivia kissed him on the cheek and headed towards the door.

"Thanks, Liv. Love you. Call me."

Olivia paused by the door. "Did he just say that? In front of Maureen?" She thought. She turned towards him, but he was deep into a long-winded reprimanding conversation with Maureen about her irresponsible behavior. With a twinkle in her eye she slid through the door and flew back to the precinct.

Scene

Cragen was fuming when Olivia walked into the squad room. "Olivia where the hell have you been?"

"I had to make an important errand. I told Craig I'd be right back."

"What's so important that you had to skip out on work?"

"It's personal boss. Just know it was important."

Olivia confidently walked into the interrogation room where Craig was having a soda with Jenny and talking about the artistic dimensions of a diamond.

"You see you're earrings are oval shaped which causes the cut to look feminine. Can I see it up close?"

Jenny pulled out her earring and handed it to him. "Do whatever it is you need to do, but I didn't get arrested to sit here and talk about earrings, now what do you people want from me?"

Olivia sat down and apologized to Jenny for making her wait. Craig took the earring and swiped the prong on the back.

"Jenny, I'd like to hear you're end of the story one more time. Tell me again how you found your husband?"

"I told you he was on his stomach."

Olivia grabbed a picture of the crime scene. "Can you point to the spot on the ground where he was laying?"

She pointed at it quickly.

"And did you see anyone around him?"

"No, he was alone."

"You see Jenny, that doesn't add up. According to Jason he was hit on the back of the head while he was standing." Olivia grabbed Craig and placed him on the wall. "So if the woman was standing here and Jason was me and someone hit me from behind I would have fallen like so. The only way for Jason to be where you pointed was if somebody dragged him there. There were no drag marks from your husband body in the gravel, Jenny. There were also only three sets of footprints, one being yours, and the only set that looked dragged was our mystery Megan's. Now can you tell me why that might be?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. I never saw that woman."

Very suddenly Craig moved into Jenny's face. His face was serious and he spoke in a deep slow voice, "If you never saw her then why are you wearing her earrings?"

Olivia's brow lowered with surprise and confusion as Craig transformed into a man before her eyes.

Jenny started to cry, "What? My husband gave those to me."

"But you said in the car you found them. Did you find them on the woman your husband was fucking?"

"I didn't."

"Jenny, don't play games with me I've already swabbed the back of this earring. If I find one speck of Megan's DNA you'll be put in jail for stealing, rape, and abduction. Now tell us what happened to Megan?"

Jenny began to hysterically cry.

"Tell me you liar. What did you do to her? Did you get jealous and kill her? Did your husband find out and smack you around?"

"Stop it! Stop it! I didn't mean to kill her. He just wouldn't stop."

Olivia pushed Craig to the side and gently forced the rest out of her, "He wouldn't stop what Jenny? Did he beat you?"

"Yes. And he cheated on me all of the time. I couldn't take it anymore."

"Tell me what happened."

"I found them next to the grocery store having sex and I took a beer bottle from my grocery bags and smashed him on the head. Megan started screaming and I stabbed her in the face with the head of the bottle. Oh god I didn't mean to. She fell to the ground screaming and I grabbed a piece of pipe lying in the alley and hit her on the head. She passed out and I dragged her to my car and put her in the trunk. I was so angry that Jason would do this to me again so I just started jamming him with anything I could find that would fit up there. I don't even know why I did it. I just couldn't control myself. After about 10 minutes he started to wake up and I realized what I did. I told him he was raped and I drove him to the hospital."

Craig sat down in a chair across from Jenny. His temper had subsided and he spoke with a controlled attitude, "Why did you make him turn the rape in?"

"Because I wanted him to know what it felt like to be humiliated and belittled."

Olivia handed Jenny a tissue, "Jenny, what did you do with Megan?"

Jenny sobbed harder. "When Jason and I got home from the hospital he was so mad at me for calling the police that he hit me and told me to get rid of Megan. He told me that I couldn't come back in the house until I got rid of her body. I…I…I left her in my trunk and I drove until I found a cliff. I stopped my car and I pushed her off."

"Can you write down where that cliff is?"

Jenny wrote down the information with a shaky hand. Fin came through the door and took it from them.

Jenny looked up from the table with fear in her eyes, "What happens to me now?"

Olivia sat down next to Craig. She felt bad for Jenny. Although Jenny was their perp in the end, she was also a victim. Olivia replied, "We'll bring in our ADA and she'll tell you what kind of charges and sentences you'll owe. She'll ask you about going to trail and you'll probably have to do some jail time. Jenny, I'm sorry that this happened to you, but you can get help. I'll see if I can get you a lawyer."

Jenny whispered "Thank you", and buried her head in her hands.

Craig and Olivia walked to their desks.

"Nice job in there Garner. I never would have guessed you had that in you."

"I took a lot of acting classes."

"How did you know those earrings were Megan's?"

"I saw them on her in the videotapes."

Olivia nodded.

"So do you think Megan landed head first or feet first? I would bet head first because it seems heavier."

Craig went back to his normal self and Olivia appreciated his questions for the first time.

Scene

Elliot was in the deepest sleep of his life when he was awoken by a knock on his door. "Huh?! Who is it?"

"NYPD. Open up."

Elliot rolled to his side and put his feet to the ground. He felt like he had been hit by a truck. The blood rushed past his eyes and he was blind for a few seconds. He stumbled to the door. "I'm coming. I can't see."

Olivia stood on the other side of his door with a bag and a plant in her hand. Elliot squinted his eyes from the light in the hallway and gave Olivia a delirious closed mouth smile. "Did I die and go to heaven? Cause I see an-"

Olivia put her hand over his mouth, "You can't say that line."

Under her hand he mumbled, "Why not?"

" Because we're not at a bar and I am feeling very knotty."

Elliot looked down and noticed that she was wearing a long leather jacket and black pumps, but her skin was showing in places that would normally be covered.

"I have dinner, condoms, and some house warming happiness. Let's Chrisian this bachelor pad before we get too old."

"Any thing you say detective. I am yours for the night. I'm yours for the taking. I'm yours until you can't stand looking at me anymore."

Olivia closed the door behind her and turned on a lamp. "Sit."

Elliot felt like he was stuck in a dream. He watched her place the houseplant on the windowsill. The only thing that kept him in reality was the pain shooting from his chest because his painkillers wore off 2 hours ago. He leaned towards his nightstand to get his pills and they fell on the floor.

She sweetly guided him to lay down on the bed and whispered in his ear. "I'll take care of you just relax." She kissed his ear and nibbled on the end of his lob. It sent a chill down his spin. "Oh god, I hope you're not teasing me."

She took the pills from the floor and placed two in his mouth. "No teasing? But that's the best part."

If he had had full movement of his torso he would have grabbed her and laid down the law right there.

Olivia took several red candles from the bag she brought and placed them around the room. "Elliot Stabler, it is time to begin your recovery to a healthy happy life. The green plant will bring you life and healthy energy." She lit one candle. "The red candles will bring you romance." She lit a second candle. "The scent from the burning wax will relax you." She lit the third. "Dinner will fill your stomach." Lastly, she lit the fourth and turned off the lamp. "And I will release your tension."

Olivia unbuttoned her coat and dropped it to the floor. The candlelight flickered off of her naked body. It was the first time Elliot saw her in entirety and he was convinced it was worth the wait.

"Liv-"

"Shhh."

Olivia crawled up to his waist and pulled off his pants. She kissed his thighs and ran her tongue over the tip of his penis. Her hands ran up to his shirt. "Sit up." She softly said to him. He sat up and she pulled his shirt off. She grabbed his hands in a finger lock and straddled his waist. He looked into her eyes for a moment. He loved looking into her eyes. He felt like she could see his soul if she wanted to. He would surrender all of it to be with her everyday. "Olivia Benson, you are undoubtedly the most beautiful woman I've ever laid my eyes on."

She gently kissed him. He ran his fingers down her neck to her nipple. She reacted with a fit of excitement and ruffly kissed him. He could feel her getting wetter. She carefully pushed him down and took him inside of her.

"Oh god, Elliot Stabler, I'm going to make you come." She cried.

"Not if I make you come first."

"Oh that's it. This time you're going down."

She stopped and slid the condom on his very well endowed erection and got back on him.

Elliot hadn't had sex in such a long time he wasn't sure he was going to be able to hold out much longer. He watched her move up and down. She took all of him in faster and faster. She bent down to kiss his neck. Elliot's mind was spinning. She started to moan over and over again. He cried out "Oh god, I'm not gonna make it. "

"mmm keep talking to me. I'm going to come."

"Liv, you're an animal. You're breasts are perfect."

"My breasts are perfect? Kiss them."

"I'm gonna come, Liv."

"Kiss them!"

He took her into his mouth and moaned.

"Ah. Yes. I'm…I …keep" Her mind went black and her body tensed and released at the same time with one explosive thrust. Elliot felt her insides pull him in and he cried out as he released inside of her.

Olivia lay on top of him breathing heavily, "You know that thing that you said to me earlier?"

Elliot played with her hair. "What thing?"

"You said the Love thing to me earlier today?"

"Yeah."

"Did you mean that?"

Elliot pulled her face to look at his, "I meant every syllable of it."

She laid her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. "I love you too."

" I know."


	10. Greener

**This chapter is dedicated to my new favorite band Tally Hall. If you like They Might Be Giants and Weezer you will love them. Check them out. Tally Hall in the house!!! **

**Ok, I'm done promoting the kickass band. I will let you know up front that this chapter is kind of long. But it's so worth it. Read my friends. Read! Also, it's the second to the last chapter of this story. Let me know what you're thinking. And to all of you who have given me your thoughts thank you. You've all been helpful. **

**Thanks**

**Scar**

Greener

It had been 4 weeks since the night Elliot was shot by Joseph Sparelli. His wounds were almost completely healed and he had a large majority of his muscle back. He strode into the precinct five minutes after Olivia with a leather jacket on and a bad-ass pair of sunglasses shielding his eyes. Craig sat at Elliot's desk talking with the forensics lab about a case they were working on, Munch and Fin were pin pointing different locations on a map in the corner, and Cragen sat in his office with the door open.

Fin spotted Elliot through the corner of his eye and stood up immediately, "Hey, look who decided to get off the couch."

Elliot opened his arms in a macho Jesus Christ form, "Yeah, you're just jealous my man."

"Good to have you back, El." Cragen said from his office

"Good to be back, Cap."

"Great, you and Liv can pick up some of those cases in the pile on her desk. Craig, you take desk duty for awhile."

Craig lifted his head from his paperwork, "Captain, what about my partner? If you give Olivia to Elliot I can't investigate anything."

"Craig, you're just going to have to deal with it until I find you a spot."

Elliot walked over to his desk, where Craig now resided. He cleared his throat. Craig looked up at Elliot towering over top of him. "Elliot Stabler, what can I do for you?"

"This is my desk."

Craig looked at the desk then at Olivia who quickly turned her eyes away from his glance. He got up slowly and stood in the middle of the room with a stack of papers in his hands. Elliot sat down and dug into a case file. Olivia looked up at Craig and felt bad. "Craig, there's a table over there you can use until we get you something better."

He nodded. He walked like a dejected puppy to the table in the corner glaring at Elliot with anger and disgust on his face.

As the room grew quiet, a chipper Maureen Stabler came bouncing into the squad room. "Daddy, I need you to write me a check for tuition. They won't let me sign up for my classes."

Elliot sighed, " I thought your mother was taking care of that?"

"Nope. She said it's all you."

"Right. Did you drive down here?"

"Yes Dad, no matter how badly you want to control my car I do drive it and I did drive it down here."

"Who says I want to control your car?"

"Olivia."

Olivia peaked from behind her papers at Elliot who was giving her the evil eye. "Hey, I only call it as I see it Stabler."

Elliot finished writing the check and handed it to Maureen, "Here yeah go. Don't lose it. You want to get some dinner at Eddie's tonight?"

"Sorry Dad, I have a hot date. There's a band playing at my school and Danny asked me to go with him."

"Who's Danny?"

"A boy you don't know. I'm so excited, because the band is so good. They came last year. The one guy is so hot. And they're really funny. They do everything from rap to songs about banana's"

Craig looked over from his desk, "What's the name of the band?"

"Tally Hall. Do you know them?"

"Unfortunately I do."

"Why do you say unfortunately?"

"I went to school with them for a year. They're all right if you like bad lyrics and guys with a high opinion of themselves. You much too smart for them."

Maureen blushed.

Elliot butted into their conversation, "Ok Maur, you better get going."

Maureen kissed her dad on the head. "Bye Dad."

"Drive safe."

"I won't", she yelled from the hallway.

Craig looked over at Elliot, "Nice girl, Elliot."

"Yeah, stay away from her."

Scene

The next day, Elliot and Olivia walked to the coffee shop next to the precinct on their way to work. Craig passed them and glared.

"Man, that guy gives me the creeps." Elliot said as he walked close to Olivia.

"He's not that bad. He's gotten better at any rate. He's stopped talking 24 hours a day."

"See he's already brain washed you."

"I feel bad for him. He's an amazing detective. He just has strange habits and a lack of social skills."

"Sounds like a good reason to keep him on my creepy guy list."

Elliot's phone rang.

"Stabler."

"Elliot, it's Cragen, we had a call come in from Columbia College. Can you and Liv go check it out?"

"Yeah, that's my daughters school. What's going on?"

"We have a homicide rape. They've already identified the body. Elliot, it's not Maureen."

"Thanks Captian, we'll get right on it."

Olivia looked at him and they both turned around and headed to their car.

Scene

When they arrived in the Emerald Courtyard at Columbia College, CSU was already collecting evidence and taking photos. A large group of students congregated around the police tape watching and crying. Elliot pushed through flashing his badge. "SVU. Look out people. Coming through." Him and Olivia ducked under the tape and saw a girl lying on the ground in a puddle of blood. Her body looked clean of any bruises or cuts. In fact, she looked quite peaceful. The detectives moved closer and they could see that the blood had come from between her legs. Olivia swallowed hard. The thought of all that blood coming from there gave her a sick feeling in her stomach.

A guy collecting samples from the body stood up to speak to them, "You SVU?"

Elliot nodded, "Yeah, what do you have so far?"

"Well if there was a rape it started on the side of the building behind those bushes. But by the looks of our girl and the area it doesn't seem like there was much of a struggle."

"Why do you say that?" Elliot asked.

"Now I won't know if there are any drugs in her system until we get her back to the lab, but there are no bruises or marks of a struggle on her body. We also found fibers from her dress on the bricks. Which means she was leaning on the wall. I'm guessing the two went for a little rendezvous in the courtyard, then for whatever reason he knifed her."

A flash of blood on the end of a pipe blinked in Olivia's head. She looked down at the girl and felt sick. Her head started spinning and her palms started to sweat.

Elliot kept on investigating. "So if he sliced her there. How did she end up over in the courtyard?"

"Well, that's interesting because your killer didn't just stab her and run. The blood spatter indicates that he stabbed her multiple times and then he held her here until she bled out. You can see how much blood was left in that one spot. My guess is that she could have been forced to stand in this spot for at least 15 minutes. Then she fell over on her hands and knees. See the hand print right there? Then she crawled to the courtyard and fell over here. It looks like he got a good chunk of her thigh too, so he probably hit one of her major arteries. The loss of blood alone would have caused her to pass out, and if nobody was here to help her, then, well, you get my drift. "

Olivia backed up away from everything and turned around with her hand on her mouth. She felt the bottom of her stomach moving to the top and images of her rape flashed around inside of her mind.

Elliot concentrated on the victim, "Can you give us a time frame?"

"I'd say she's been dead for 6 or 7 hours, so 1:30 or 2 am would be my best guess."

"Thanks. Liv, can you go find out if there are any security cameras in this area?"

When she didn't reply he turned to find that she was gone. "Liv?"

"Dad."

Elliot heard a familiar voice and turned behind him to see his beautiful daughter Maureen. "Maureen you need to sleep at Mom's tonight."

"Good morning to you too."

"Sorry." Elliot walked to the tape and gave her a hug. "Do you know this girl?"

"No. I've seen her around, but I don't know her. It's terrible what happened."

"When's your last class?"

"Four."

"I want you off this campus and at your mother's house until we catch this guy. Do you hear me?"

"Yeah, Dad, I got you."

"Ok I gotta go. Be careful." He kissed her on the forehead and turned to look for Olivia.

Scene

Olivia pushed through the crowd, ran to the side of a nearby building, and vomited behind a tree. She stood bent over with her eyes closed for a moment. Her heart was racing as she gasped for air. "1, 2, 3, 4, 5," she counted to herself as she regained her senses. After a moment she stood up and brushed the hair off of her cheek. There on the tree was a flyer "Concert Wednesday Night in the Emerald Courtyard. Jam with Tally Hall. Featured songs on the OC. Starting at 10pm." Olivia grabbed the flyer and went to find Elliot.

Scene

Elliot was talking to the students that found the girl, who's name he found out was Renee Janson. Olivia walked up behind him.

"Liv, where'd you go?"

She handed him the flyer. He looked at it and then back at her pale face. "You ok?"

"Yeah. The concert was in this courtyard. We should find out who was with our victim. Let's find her friends."

Elliot followed her with concern in his eyes.

Scene

The detectives came to a hallway in the Bueller Dorm building.

"Her roommate is Shelly Alister. She's in room 197." Elliot said.

"Here." Olivia got to the door and knocked. "Shelly, are you there? It's the police we need to speak to you."

Shelly clicked the door open. She was a thin girl with dark black hair and thick black glasses on. She wore a big t-shirt and pajama pants. With a look of disgust on her face she stood in the doorway without saying a word.

"Hi, I'm detective Olivia Benson, can I ask you some questions about Renee?"

She opened the door fully and gestured them to come in.

Olivia watched Shelly as she sat on her bed and stared out the window. "Shelly, were you and Renee close?"

"I'm only her roommate because I had no choice. I've been waiting for a single room to open up, but as you can see that hasn't happened."

"Did you see Renee at all last night?"

"Yeah, she was getting all gussied up to hang out with her oh-so-obnoxious friends, Tiffany and Emma."

Elliot snooped around Renee's desk. He found the Tally Hall flyer and handed it to Olivia.

"Why didn't you two get along?" Olivia continued.

"Different topics of interest. I came here to get a degree. She came here to fuck."

"Why do you say that?"

"She had a new guy in this room every Friday and Saturday night. What can I say, I think she deserved what she got."

"Did she have a guy with her last night?"

"Not when she left, but I'm sure she did eventually."

Elliot clicked the mouse on Renee's computer and a picture popped up. "Shelly do you know who the people are in this picture?" Elliot asked.

"Yeah, that's Renee, Tiffany, Emma, and a bunch of guys in that band they went to see last night. That's all they've been talking about for weeks."

"Do you know when this was taken?"

She pointed to a sign in the background that said 'Berkeley U' on it.

Elliot grabbed the laptop, "Can we take this with us?"

"I don't give a shit. If it were up to me I'd sell all of it on ebay including the picture I took when everybody found out."

Olivia angrily threw her notebook down. "You know, Shelly this isn't a joke. There's a girl down in the courtyard that's been sliced open from the inside out. And as of this moment your attitude is not making me believe that you didn't have something to do with it. Now have some respect and help us out here or I'm gonna have no choice but to take you in as a suspect. You got it Shelly? Or are you too busy measuring all of the empty space she left you!" Olivia was starting to lose control of herself. Shelly started to back up. Her face was in shock. Elliot cut in to hold Olivia back. "Liv. Olivia?!"

She stopped herself and took a few breaths.

Elliot pulled her to the side, "Liv, why don't you go wait outside?"

She nodded and left the room.

Elliot came out five minutes later and they both walked down the hallway.

Elliot gently rubbed the middle of Olivia's shoulders, "What's going on? Do you need to step out of this one? Because it's ok if you do?"

"No, I'm fine. I just had a moment. I'll go see Huang on my break."

Elliot stopped her. "Why don't you go take your break now. I'll go find Renee's friends. Munch and Fin can go talk to this Tally Hall band."

Scene

Fin and Munch walked into the Best Western where Tally Hall was staying while they played the college circuit in NYC.

Fin held the photo in his hand, "What the hell happened to rock'n roll bands? It seems like anyone with a guitar can have a band nowadays. These guys look like they could work with Craig at Best Buy."

"It's an artistic burn on all of their rich white dad's. Little do they know that someday they'll be their Dad, no matter how rebellious they think they are. In the mean time, I hope they're living it up cause the women will eventually run away or marry them. Either way they're screwed."

Fin looked at him with a twitch in his brow. "You had a band in high school didn't you?"

"I had tight pants and a bad mustache."

Fin laughed, "I hope I never get to see those pictures."

John got to the hotel door and gave it a rap.

A voice came from inside. "Who is it?"

"NYPD. We have a few questions to ask you."

A young guy with messy hair opened the door, "Ah, Zubin, I told you not to order those movies." He laughed. "I'm just kidding, officer-"

"It's detective." Munch said in his very serious bad cop tone.

"Detective. Sorry. Ah, yeah, come in."

The five guys of Tally Hall sat up as Munch and Fin walked in.

The guy who opened the door introduced himself. "Hi, I'm Rob. This is Ross, Zubin, Andrew, and Joe. What can we do for you?"

Fin flipped the picture around for them to see, "Do you know these girls?"

Rob stepped back, "Ross, you wanna answer that?"

"Yeah, I was talking to the one girl Tiffany online and she got obsessed. They found out we were doing a college tour and they've been following us since we got in town."

Fin took the picture away, "Did you see them last night?"

"I saw them from stage and then they tried to get back stage but we told our sound guy to get rid of them."

"Who's your sound guy? We're gonna need to talk to him."

"Rick. Rick Mauthe. He's on the 3 rd floor. I'm not sure what room."

"Why do you need to know all of this?" Andrew asked.

"Cause somebody got rid of one of these girls for good after your concert last night." Fin said.

Munch wrote down some notes and asked them some more questions, "After the concert where did you guys go?"

Rob sat down with a look of concern on his face. "We went to the hotel bar. We were there until 2 am."

"And if we ask the bartender is he going to remember all of your faces?"

"Yeah, yeah. When we said to get rid of them we just meant to ask them to leave. Rick isn't the kind of guy I can imagine doing anything like that. I'm sure it's a big mistake."

Fin walked to the door. "Yeah well we'll see."

Munch threw a card at them, "Call us if you think of anything."

Scene

Olivia talked to Huang and then went back to work. She felt better, but she was upset with herself for allowing all of those thoughts to affect her work. On her way to her desk she spotted Craig going through Elliot's files.

"Hey Craig, what are doing?"

Craig jumped, "Olivia, you got back fast. Where's Elliot?"

"He's taking care of some things without me." She looked down at the case file he dropped. "What's that?"

"Oh, I'm just trying to figure out some details for the report I'm typing up."

She picked up the file and read it. "This is the James Preston case. What are you doing with this case? Why is this on Elliot's desk?"

"I… I … don't know I was just trying to-"

"You were just trying to what?"

Craig stood in silence.

"Well, Craig, for your information, it hurt."

Olivia walked away with fury in her step. She opened her locker, placed it inside, and slammed the door. Craig left the room and ran into Elliot, who was on his way in. Elliot had a box of videotapes in his arm that dropped to the ground.

"Elliot, sorry."

Elliot gave him a look and Craig went running for the elevators.

"What's his problem?"

"I don't know. Maybe you should be asking yourself that question."

"What are you talking about?"

"You left your locked cabinet open." He gave her a quizzical eye.

"Never mind. I took care of it. What do you have on our girl?"

Cragen came into the room before Elliot could give Olivia the information. "Elliot, I just got a phone call from the lab. Can I talk to you privately?"

Elliot followed Cragen into his office.

Cragen paused for a moment. "Can you vouch where you were last night between the hours of 1 and 2:30 am?"

"Yeah, why?"

Cragen starred at Elliot trying to read him, "God, I hate to even ask you these questions."

"What? Just tell me."

"I'm going to need to know where you were and I'm going to need a witness."

Elliot's face grew red. He couldn't tell him where he was last night because he would be fired, so he told him where he would have been last night if he had not been with Olivia, "I was at home. Sleeping. I don't have a witness. Why are you asking me this?"

"Elliot, the lab found your sperm on the victim."

"What? Captain, I don't know what you're talking about. There has to be a mistake."

"I know. I'm having them run the tests again. Elliot, are you sure nobody saw you go into your apartment last night."

Elliot was pacing, "No. I don't know. Probably not. Captain, somebody is framing me."

"I know, but until we figure out how, I'm gonna have to lock you up."

"I want a lawyer. Right now."

"I already called you one. She's on her way."

Cragen's heart sank. " I'm gonna have to keep you in an interrogation room until we can figure out why this has happened."

"You believe them? Why don't you just lock me in the pen too while you're at it?"

"Elliot, my ass is on the line. If anybody finds out that I gave you privileges I could be fired."

Elliot stormed out of the door. He walked to the pen. "Go ahead, Cap, lock me up."

Olivia jumped up from her desk, "What's going on?"

"The Captian here thinks that I've become the next Jack the Ripper."

"I don't think that Elliot. I have no choice unless you can give me evidence of your whereabouts last night."

Olivia's heart stopped. Elliot looked at her then rubbed his eyes. Quietly he said, "I can't do that. I told you I was alone." Defeated he walked to the interrogation room and sat down at the table.

Scene

Fin and Munch came through the squad room doors and talked to Olivia, who sat in front of a television watching the security footage with red eyes and a hint of shock on her face. "Tally Hall is cleared. Everyone's stories checked out. Let's hope the lab gives us something to work with. Did you guys find anything?"

She didn't say a word to them about Elliot. " I think I found something but I'm just getting to the end of the concert now. There's our girl with Marty."

Fin pointed to a guy in a black baseball cap. "What's this guy doing? He looks like he's following her? Munch is that the same hat Rick Mauthe had on? He just bumped into her?"

"Ow, Marty's giving him hell." Munch said.

The guy in the baseball cap backed away. Marty and Renee continued talking and then Marty left her. Renee walked the other direction and then tripped on the ground. "What is she drunk?" Munch asked.

Olivia got closer to the screen. "I only saw her drink one glass. How could she be drunk? She's stumbling all over the place."

"Baseball boy is back. He's helping her up." Fin added.

Renee and the guy in the cap stumble off screen.

Olivia stood up. "Get Marty in here maybe he can identify this guy. Fin, go grab Rick. I'm going to see if Forensics has found anything else. We need to know what she was drugged with."

Scene

Melinda stood next to Renee's body with a chart in her hand. "Your victim had a very strong muscle relaxer injected into her body. The kind you might use on a horse. He got her in the side. It wasn't a clean shot. See the bruising? The blade of the knife was pretty big. I'd say it was a good 5 inches long. He stabbed her insides over a dozen times and then made a slice here on her inner thigh. Now, I almost feel as though this slice was a trademark, because it would have been a lot faster to kill the victim in another place. That and he knew exactly where to hit the vain to make her bleed faster."

Olivia bent over the girl. Her mind flashed images of her bleeding thigh. "So our perp could be a doctor or at least have knowledge of being a doctor? "

"It's possible. They definitely have knowledge of the body and anyone that can get a hold of that kind of muscle relaxer would have to have access to it."

"Tally Hall. Four of them are Med students. Do you know where they could have gotten this relaxer?"

"Yeah, I'll make you a list."

Olivia was about to walk out of the room, but she stopped herself, "Melinda, how sure are you about the DNA on the victim?"

Melinda took a breath. "I did the tests 4 times. I still can't believe it myself."

Olivia looked at the floor and thought for a moment. "Is there anyway for someone to frame you with sperm. Like if they took it from a condom or something?"

"It's possible if somebody took the sperm from the condom before it dried up. You know I didn't check it for spermicide. Let me do that right now."

Melinda messed around with some tubes and a microscope. "It's here. I've got some spermicide here. I don't know if that's helpful."

Olivia looked at the sperm sample. She was drawn to a thought of Elliot on top of her. His kiss touching her neck. The shape of his hands.

Melinda looked at Olivia, who was spaced out. "Olivia?"

"Sorry. I was just thinking. I gotta go."

"Good luck, Liv." Melinda said as she watched Olivia exit the lab.

Scene

Fin and Munch interrogated Rick Mauthe for hours. Fin was running out of ideas. He walked out of the room to talk to Casey and Cragen. "We got nothing but the baseball cap and a lie about his where abouts. He told us yesterday he was with his girlfriend. Now he's telling us he was at the hotel alone. The girlfriend is crazier then he is."

"Fin, we can't hold him for that. There are a million guys with black baseball caps and crazy girlfriends." Casey said with her hands on her hips.

"Can't we hold him for lying to us."

"I need more evidence Fin." With that she left the room.

Scene

Olivia swung open the door to the room Elliot and his lawyer, Alex, sat in. "I need to talk to you. Alex?" Olivia's heart lifted. "How did you get back? How are you here? Oh I am so glad you're here." She ran over and hugged her.

Alex smiled, "I was persuaded to come out of hiding to help an old friend get out of jail."

"I'm glad. We need help. Elliot, Melinda found spermicide in your sample."

"So." Elliot said with bags under his eyes.

"So somebody could have framed you." She looked at Alex. "Alex, can I have a word with Elliot alone."

"Sure." Alex got up and left the room.

Olivia got close to Elliot's ear, "Elliot, last night after we- I took the garbage out while you were taking a shower. Melinda said that someone could have easily framed you if they got a hold of that condom before it dried."

"Yeah, but Oliv, how am I going to prove that somebody took my used condom if I can't tell them where I was last night?"

Just then Cragen walked in the room, "Elliot, you're cleared. Melinda did some more research and they found that you would have had to rap the girl around 11:30, which doesn't fit in our timeline."

Elliot stood up, "What?"

"They put a time line on your sample with advanced technology. It doesn't match up with our victim's rap and whereabouts. I want you and Liv to keep an eye out for anybody following you. Don't do anything stupid until we catch this guy."

"Thanks Captain." Elliot said in a disheveled tone.

"Sorry about all of this El. You know I believed you. Now go find our perp."

Elliot nodded and Cragen left the room. Olivia starred at him with red eyes. "Not now." He whispered.

Scene

The day grew longer by the moment. Elliot and Olivia interrogated the members of Tally Hall and got nothing. In fact, their story seemed even more innocent now then when they told it the first time. They were free to go. Elliot decided to call it quits. "I'm fried. You want to call it a day?"

Olivia nodded and they both grabbed their coats and headed for the door. "I'm going to sleep at my place tonight."

"Ok. Do you want company?"

"Um. Not tonight."

Elliot walked quietly beside her. "It's not because of the accusations right?"

"No, Elliot, come on I was with you."

"Yeah and you were on a lot of sleeping pills. How do you know I didn't?"

Olivia looked at him and wrinkled her nose, "Elliot Stabler, you're a lot of things, but raper and slasher are not one of them."

"It's probably best that we keep some distance for awhile, anyway."

"Yeah."

Elliot drove Olivia to her apartment and dropped her off. He parked his car outside of her building and cranked the seat back. He picked up his cell phone and dialed Kathy's number.

"Kathy, is Maureen at home? Good. Make sure she stays there until this is over. I'm doing well. How are you? Great. Goodnight Kathy."

Scene

The next morning Elliot was ripped out of his sleep by a bang on the window. Olivia stood outside with a heated look on her face. Elliot opened the car door.

"So much for keeping some distance."

"Liv, I just wanted to make sure that you were ok."

"I've told you before that I can take care of myself. When are you going to start trusting me again?"

"I trust you Liv. I just don't trust anybody else."

They walked to work and fought the entire way. Elliot looked like hell. He was wearing the same clothes he had on yesterday. The elevator door opened and Craig stood on the other side. "Elliot, Olivia, top of the morning to you." Both of them pushed past him in silence. Elliot grunted a bit.

Cragen was waiting for them, "El, Liv, our college ripper struck again last night."

Olivia's mouth dropped, "At a Tally Hall concert?"

Cragen nodded.

"Fuck." She grabbed her files and turned for the door.

Munch looked at Elliot, "Somebody missed her cup of coffee this morning."

Elliot shook is head and ran after her.

Scene

When they got to the scene of the crime the girl was laid out in the same fashion with the same cuts. The only difference was that this time she had a small slice on her cheek. Olivia took one look at the body and pulled Elliot to the side. "I know I've been on edge, but does any of this seem familiar to you?"

"Familiar to what?"

"To my. To the…", she could see he wasn't thinking what she thought. "Never mind. It's not the same."

"Tell me Olivia."

"It's just that those cuts are in the same places as mine were."

Elliot could see the hurt in her eyes. He pulled her behind the ambulance and hugged her. "Liv, it's possible, but it's probably just a coincidence."

"And what if it's not?"

"Liv, nobody knew about the details of your case."

"Craig knows."

"How does he know? "

"You left your drawer open again. I caught him looking at it."

Elliot was furious. He was about to lose is temper, "God Damnit! Liv, I'm an idiot. Why the hell was he looking my drawer anyway?"

"I don't know El. It doesn't matter. What's done is done. The point is that I have a bad feeling about this case."

"Liv, if someone were out to get us why would they do it at a college? And what does Tally Hall have to do with it? It just doesn't add up."

Olivia thought about it and closed her eyes. "I don't know. I don't know."

Elliot grabbed her hand, "Come on, let's find more evidence. We've caught perps with less before."

Scene

When they got back to the Squad room Fin and Munch were putting on t-shirts with alternative bands on them and headsets. Munch threw a pair of jeans at Olivia.

"What's going on?" Olivia asked.

Munch slapped a hoodie on and answered, "We're going to Tally Hall. If our perp likes the band so much we figured we might as well take a look for ourselves."

Cragen pinned a sketch of a guy with a baseball cap onto the bulletin board. "Everyone is to be on the lookout for a guy like this. He is prone to go after women with short brown hair. We'll have full back up ready to take charge when and if necessary. Is this all clear people?"

Elliot nodded as he wired Olivia's headset to the inside of her shirt. She seemed distanced from him. He was worried about her. He talked quietly to her, "Liv, you ok?"

She looked him in the eye, "Yeah. I'm just thinking."

He grazed her breast as he taped the wire to her body, "You're right, I do need to trust you more."

"Thank you." She smiled.

He walked around her and connected the battery to her pants. Slowly he leaned in and kissed her lightly on the neck.

Olivia pulled away from him, "Stop it Elliot."

"What?"

"You're not careful enough."

" I thought…"

Fin pushed in between them, "Alright you two break it up. Captain's gonna fire your ass. Besides it's my turn. Hook me up bro."

Scene

All four detectives got to the concert in good timing. The band was playing loudly in the background as they split up in and around the crowd. Elliot was trying to stay focused, but he was confused and worried about Olivia's mood swings. He wanted this case to be over. Olivia clicked into survival mode and sought out the perp like it was the last thing she was going to do.

"All is quite on the home front." Munch said in his microphone.

Olivia and Elliot stood on either side of the crowd. They inched their way through the noise and the dancing students. College girls screamed as the lead singer started into the next song.

"_Here's that part again  
Where everything's more than it should be and  
Greener seems to fall beneath your feet" _

"Anything on your side Liv?"

"A lot of jumping."

_"Seconds tick like boulders  
Whenever you don't call  
Does it seem like that where you are  
Wherever it is you are  
Does it seem like that where you are Oh"_

Olivia bumped into a guy and he smiled at her "Hey, pretty lady"

She gave him a half smile and kept moving through the crowd.

"Liv, I don't see you."

"I'm fine. Just find our perp."

"_Time for time together  
And depending on the weather  
We'll either argue in your  
House or outside"_

"Hey, I'm just making sure we're not looking in the same spots."

"Keep telling yourself that Elliot."

Fin popped on the headset. "You two want to dish this out on your own time or should I get you an aspirin."

Elliot answered. "Noted."

"_How different i felt  
before i got this notch on my belt  
'cause in my plans you were all for me  
Yeah but now it seems that you'd just rather leave"_

"Elliot, I see a guy in a black cap at the front of the stage."

"Got him. Meet me there?"

"Yeah…I….my..way."

"Liv, you're break'n upCheck your wire."

_"Wherever you go  
Is breaking me slowly  
Don't leave it alone  
Don't leave it alone  
You sound so much further on the phone"_

Olivia walked past the guy and walked towards Elliot shaking her head. "Wrong guy."

They stopped back-to-back looking around at all of the people and stage hands. They were almost touching. Elliot could feel her hair tickle his neck.

_"You fit just right  
Right next to me"_

Munch broke in, "Olivia, you have a guy close to you on the right in a cap."

"That looks like our guy." Olivia said. "Elliot, take the left. I'll take the right."

"_But there's always a reason why it can't be_"

They stood close enough to watch his every move. The crowd started yelling the words to the song.

_"You fit just right  
Right next to me_

_But there's always a reason why it can't be"_

Elliot had his eye on their guy when a group of drunken students pushed him over.

"Elliot, are… ok?" Olivia yelled from her headset.

Olivia's headset was cutting out. A hand reached down and pulled Elliot off the ground. "Craig? What are you doing here?" Elliot yelled.

"I figured out who your guy is." Craig screamed through the noise.

"Yeah, I know who our guy is he's right there."

"No, that's not him." Craig fell into Elliot and ripped the wiring from the back of Elliot's pants.

"Hey, what the hell are you doing?"

"I'm sorry. It was an accident. Elliot you have to trust me. You're guy is over there." Craig pointed to a patch of trees next to the stage.

Scene

"Elliot where are you? Can you hear me?" Olivia frantically called for her partner. "Fin, Elliot went down and I don't see him. I need some help up here."

"We're on it."

Fin and Munch came through the crowd. Olivia saw the guy in a baseball cap start to leave. "Munch, perp is headed towards you."

"Got it."

Scene

Craig pulled Elliot out of the crowd. "I did some research on your files and a guy popped up on my screen from Michigan. He's raped and killed 6 women at Michigan State a year ago. Nobody ever caught him and after the 6th homicide he just disappeared. I took the picture that the witnesses there took and I came here to look for him. He's there."

Elliot saw a guy in a black t-shirt and a black baseball cap, go towards the trees. He pulled the gun from its' holster and ran for the guy. He rounded the corner and there was the guy standing over a bloody girl.

"Freeze. NYPD."

The guy turned around. "Whoa, I didn't do it. I don't know what's going on?"

"Step away from-" Elliot blacked out and for a second he felt himself falling.

Scene

A shot went off behind the stage and a guy in a baseball cap came stumbling from the trees. He ran towards the crowd and fell over. Olivia ran towards the man. The crowd screamed and started to run. Tally Hall screeched to a halt and got off stage. Olivia felt for the man's pulse. He was dead. Fin and Munch ran towards the trees. Elliot was getting off the ground. His hands and arms were red with blood. He held his gun in one hand and a knife in the other.

"Elliot, what happened?" Fin said holding his gun to the ground.

"I don't know." Elliot stood disoriented.

Munch walked over to the victim and saw bloody handprints all over the girl's body. "Elliot did you touch this victim?"

"No, I didn't do this. John, Fin, I didn't touch her. She was here and then I blacked out."

"You blacked out?"

"Craig told me that the guy in the cap was our perp and I came back here and I blacked out. My head is throbbing."

Olivia pushed through. She caught the last bit of his explanation. She walked up to him and felt his head. "It's swollen. Tell back up to search the premise for Garner."

She grabbed the side of Elliot's arm and guided him to sit on a nearby bench.

Fin looked at Munch. He had a bad feeling about the whole situation. "Livia, let me ask the questions. You're gonna get yourself in trouble if you don't watch yourself."

"What are you talking about? He didn't do it. He didn't fucking do it."

Munch touched Olivia's arm, "Liv, let's go back to home base. They need a second."

She walked away with Munch and looked behind her at Elliot who sat with his head in his hands.


	11. 1 Plus 1

**This is the last chapter to this story. It's really long and I could have probably made it 2 chapters, but I wanted to end with the 11th chapter because that's my favorite number. I'm also in a gooshy chick flick mood today and I hope I didn't get too carried away in some places. Let me know if it's too much. I'll make a rewrite. I left some things open for a sequel. If any of you are interested in reading more let me know and when I get some spare time I'll think of some stuff. I'm also always up for ideas. If you're the kind of person that only likes to come to this website to read. Let me know what you would like to read these characters doing and I'll see if it sparks anything in my gooy mind. Peace Out Ya'll**

**Scar**

**1+1 **

The pounding of his head beat like a drum over and over again to the sounds of metal and coughing around him. Elliot looked up to the ceiling of the jail cell, of which he now resided. His feelings of betrayal circulated around the thumping in his mind. Eight years on the job and there wasn't one day that he could fathom being on the other side of these bars. With is hands crossed over his heart he closed his eyes and talked to the only God he knew for an answer out of this hell. He heard footsteps coming down the hallway and they stopped at his cell. "Stabler. You got a visitor."

Elliot looked at the guard and slowly pulled his body from the bed. The guard cuffed him and led him to the visitor's quarters. Olivia sat on the other side of the glass. He sat down and touched the glass with his hand. She reached out and met her hand to his. Her lips formed an inaudible "Elliot" to him, and they stood in silence for a moment. Elliot picked up the phone on the wall and Olivia followed his lead. "Liv, don't be sad. I'm going to get out this. I didn't do anything. I just need to wait for you guys to find Craig."

Olivia didn't answer right away. "El, we found Craig. He had an alibi and it checked out. Unless his alibi is wrong, he wasn't there."

"Olivia, he smashed me on the head. I have the bruise and cut to prove it."

"Elliot, the guy you shot, hit you on the head. They found the rock and it has his prints on it."

Elliot backed away from the glass, "Liv, you have to believe me. Why would I lie to you?"

"I don't think you are lying to me, but I can't prove anything. Elliot, things aren't adding up. I mean you even said that it was possible that I might not have heard you leave the night you stayed with me."

"Liv, why would I tell you that and then lie to you right now? I have no reason to want to kill innocent people. The guy in the videotape doesn't even look like me. Liv, please don't tell me you're on their side?"

"I'm not. I'm just trying to take in every angle, so that I can get you out of here."

"There were video cameras at the school. Watch them. Craig was there. I'm innocent."

Olivia looked away and then back at him. "Elliot, the tapes were destroyed."

Elliot stood up "What are you talking about? "

"They found small explosives in the video recorders that were wired to a remote control."

"Search Craig's things. He has the remote."

"Actually, Elliot, the remote was in your pocket."

Elliot banged on the glass and yelled, "Olivia, don't say this to me. My god, I didn't do this."

Olivia put the phone down and grabbed her temples with her hands. Elliot sat in the chair on the other side of the glass. He got close to the glass and spoke into the phone with a soft fear behind his voice.  
"Liv, you have to believe me. I'm being framed. Please pick up the phone. I won't yell again."

She pulled her eyes up to look at his. She wanted to believe him. With a shaky hand she reached for the receiver and they sat in silence.

"Elliot, why did you follow Craig without us?"

"He told me Cragen brought him in. I thought he was working with us. He had all of these explanations about finding new evidence. I was tricked, Liv. Can't you see that? You would have done the same thing."

Olivia quietly nodded.

"I don't know what else to say to make you believe me."

"Elliot, I want to believe you more then anyone. I have to believe you."

She paused. "What was Craig wearing that night?"

"Black coat. Cotton or Polyester of some sort. Blue jeans, and black Doc Martin boots. I only know that because it was the first thing I saw when he helped me off the ground."

Can you think of anything else?"

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut to think and opened them with a shake of his head, "I've told you everything."

"I know."

Elliot sat forward near the glass, "Liv, give me your hand."

She reached her hand up to his and leaned close to his eyes.

"Liv, I want you to go to my apartment and look in the drawer on my nightstand. There's a box in there that I want you to have. Keep it with you until this is over."

She just starred at him.

"Liv, I love you. Please don't lose faith in me. You're all I have."

She looked deep in his eyes to try and find the answers. She knew he wasn't capable of these crimes and the fact was, she knew he was smarter then the evidence left behind. Everything was happening too quickly. She backed up and quietly replied, "I have to go. Be patient."

Olivia dropped the phone and walked out of the door. Watching her leave was painful. His anger and frustration fell into a dark depression.

Scene

Olivia walked into the small apartment. The emptiness was over whelming. She sat on the bed next to the nightstand trying to decide if she really wanted to see what was in the drawer. His presence was all around her. The red candles were the only color and even they were growing dusty. Taking a breath she opened the drawer and pulled out a small box. Her heart stopped. She didn't need to open it to know what it was. The air seemed to get thin and breathing was becoming more difficult the longer she sat there. Swallowing hard she opened the lid. Inside was a gold ring with several diamonds on it. Olivia closed her eyes. The thoughts of Elliot were blank. Her mind was fuzzy with confusion. She lay down on the bed and hugged his pillow. Every breath she took brought in the scent of his body. She wanted to cry but she could only stare at the ring. This was uncharted territory he left for her to deal with. Marriage was a pipe dream to her. She slid the ring on her finger. It fit perfectly. She thought about him being there with her. She could almost feel him spooning her from behind. His low voice whispering in her ear, "Olivia Benson, will you marry me?" She would in turn roll on her back, look up at him, and softly say, "Yes, Elliot Stabler, I will marry you." He would kiss her and run his hand lightly down the front of her chest. She would stop him like the stubborn woman she was, "But only if I get to be on top." Olivia rolled over on the empty bed smiling at the ring on her hand. In mid daydream her phone vibrated on her belt. "Stabler. I mean, Benson."

Fin was on the other line. "Liv? "

She mouthed a "Shit", and continued. "Ah, yeah. What do you want Fin?"

"Where you at? The Captain's been looking for you."

She looked at the clock on Elliot's nightstand, "Oh, huh, I'll be there in 10 minutes. I had to ask Elliot some more questions. Tell him I'll be there. Later." She clicked the phone off. The diamond shined as she moved her hand. She stopped and pulled the ring off of her finger. After a second to collect her thoughts she unlatched the necklace around her neck and slid the ring onto the chain. Wearing it on her finger may have brought unwanted questions. The ring lay safely under her shirt. She touched it and took in a deep breath before quickly heading back to the station.

Scene

Deputy Inspector Greg Orneel knocked on Cragen's door. Don looked up from his paper work, "Greg, what brings you to my office? Come in, please."

Cragen stood up to welcome him inside and shake his hand. The Deputy was a tall man with a strong build. He towered over the Captain and shook his hand with the force of a tank.

"Hi Don, I dropped by to talk to you about the case involving one of your detectives."

Cragen's smile slowly faded. "I had a feeling you would. We're doing everything we can to find more evidence."

"That's the thing Don. I looked it over and there's plenty of evidence. We feel that this unit is too personally involved with the perp. I came here to tell you that we're going to transfer this case to the 61st precinct."

Cragen nodded. "I can see why you would want to do that, but this isn't just some random killer you want to prosecute. Detective Elliot Stabler, has been part of my team for 8 years. He has never shown this type of behavior before in the past. The person and the crimes don't match up. Now can you give us at least one more week to see what we can come up with? "

"I looked over your Detective's records and I feel differently about his behavior."

"He had a ruff patch. Don't we all? He was going through a divorce. He had anger problems that he works on in counseling. He would never do something as terrible as to rape and slice up 3 girls."

"Don, I'd love for you to be able to find evidence pointing in a new direction, but that doesn't change my opinion about transferring this case. I have to do what's best for the city of New York. Think about how bad it would look for us to push this case back to help out one of our own. We have enough trouble getting the people to trust us. I'm sorry Don. That's how it goes."

"You're telling me that you're going to let a man who puts his heart and soul into this job rot in jail because you don't want to look bad."

"That's not what I said Don. Now if you could kindly point me to the files on this case I'd greatly appreciate it."

Greg opened the door and walked towards the filing cabinets. Everyone in the room froze. Fin and Munch glanced up at the Inspector, Craig stopped writing in the corner to listen, but he didn't turn around, and Olivia stood up, "Captain, what's going on?"

"Not now Olivia."

Cragen started taking down all of the photos and evidence from the bulletin board. His face grew red hot as he placed it in a box. Fin and Munch stood up to confront him as they watch the evidence slowly vanish from the board. Cragen placed his hand in the air, "Detectives don't even start. Go back to work."

Olivia started to panic, "You can't do this. Captain, you can't stop this case yet."

"Olivia, it's beyond my control. It's been reassigned to a different branch."

"Why? We know the case. We're this close to a lead. Don't do this."

Cragen ignored her. Greg strolled over to them with the files in his hand. Olivia looked at him with her mouth open, "Inspector, you have to give us a couple more days."

"Darling, I don't know who you think you are, but if you want to keep your job you're gonna have to hand over all of the information on this case. There seem to be some missing files. How about I check your desk?" Greg walked over and pulled the rest of the information off of Olivia's desk.

Olivia was about to flip out, when Cragen pulled her arm, "Olivia, let it go."

Greg scooped up the box and smiled at her, "You keep up the good work now, Sweety."

Olivia glared at the Inspector as he rounded the corner. "I outta turn him in for sexual harrasment and endangering evidence."

"You'll do no such thing. Get caught up on your work or I'll assign you desk duty." Cragen said with a angered flare.

Olivia couldn't stop though. She just kept up her guns. "Are you going to allow this to happen? I can't believe you would leave him in there and rely on people that are going to treat his case as a sitting duck."

"There was nothing I could do."

"You could have tried harder." She yelled.

Cragen yelled even louder, "That's it. Go home."

Fin and Munch sat in silence. Olivia couldn't believe what was happening in front of her eyes. "You're all a bunch of cowards."

She turned to leave and stopped at Craigs desk. He had his back to them the whole time. "And you. You've been awfully quiet." He didn't move. She walked closer to him. "Did you have your fill of questions and answers?" He didn't answer her. "She stood over his shoulder. "Who's life are you going to destroy next, huh, Craig? Fin? Munch? It's gonna be tuff. Neither one of them has a personal life for you to invade."

Cragen stopped her from going any further, "Olivia, that's enough. Get out of my precinct."

Olivia looked down at Craig. His hand was cut. She grabbed it, "What's that?"

Craig pulled it away, "I go horse back riding at my grandfather's house every weekend. I cut it on a branch."

"Olivia, now." Cragen yelled.

Scene

Olivia walked with imaginary smoke pouring from her ears as she played the argument with Cragen over in her mind. She didn't stop until she got to the library. Lucky for Elliot she had his files memorized. She sat at a computer and dug up some background on Craig. She found his grandfather's address. He lived an hour outside of the city. She went back to the precinct and stole a car from the lot. An hour later she arrived at an old farmhouse to the name of Paul Garner. Olivia knocked on the door. Nobody answered. She took a walk to the barn where she could hear the horses whinnying and shuffling in their stalls. She pulled out the list that Melinda gave her with the name of the muscle relaxer on it. "Robaxinaxin" she said to herself. There were cabinets at the end of the barn. She started going through each one until she found it. There on the top shelf were a bunch of different medications for racehorses. Each bottle had a strange name and description on them. Finally, Olivia grabbed a big bottle. On the back read "Robaxinaxin". "AH!" She cried with excitement. She tore the phone off of her belt. "Casey, I've got a lead to Elliot's case. I'm at Craig's grandfather's house. He has Robaxinaxin for his horses."

"That's great Liv. Did his grandfather give that to you or are you illegally snooping around?"

"I-"

Just then a man stood at the barn door with a shotgun pointed at Olivia's direction.

"Casey, I gotta go."

The old man spit.

"Are you Paul Garner?"

He let the gun drop a bit. "Who wants to know?"

"I'm a detective. I work with your grandson, Craig."

"Yeah, what are you doing in my barn?"

"I…Well Craig told me that you have horses. We're doing an investigation, and we're looking for this muscle relaxer." She wasn't completely lying. She pointed to the bottle and the old man spit again.

"What do you need that for?"

"Um. I have to compare it with a sample we have to see if it's what we're looking for. Craig thought you might have some."

Paul slung his gun on his shoulder, "Why didn't Craig come down himself? He knows where it is."

"We've been swamped at the office. He's pretty busy."

"He seems to like that sort a thing."

"Mr. Garner, did Paul visit you this past weekend?"

"He hasn't visited in over a month. Ever since he got that city job. That's where he spends his time."

Olivia smiled. "Can I take a sample of this Robaxinaxin?"

"Take the whole bottle if you like. My horses don't race anymore. I'm too old to be race'n horses."

"Thank you Mr. Garner. I've gotta go, but I'll tell Craig you said hi."

"mmmyeah." He spit again.

Olivia said goodbye and walked to her car.

Casey had called her 3 times after she hung up on her. "Casey?"

"Liv, what happened?"

"I need a warrant for Craig's apartment and locker. I have a bottle of the muscle relaxer used to stun our victims."

"I'll see what I can do."

"Casey, it's important. Please do what ever you have to to get it."

Scene

Casey walked into the squad room and threw the warrant at Fin. "Here's Olivia's warrant."

Fin looked at her, "What are you talking about?"

"For Craig's apartment and locker."

"What? She's not supposed to be on that case. The Captain was given strict orders to stay away from Elliot's case. Not to mention he sent her home 2 hours ago for bad mouth'n him."

"Well talk to him about. I got the paper work for it and Olivia supposedly has the evidence to support it."

Cragen came out of his office. Casey, Fin, and Munch all stopped like a deer in headlights, "I heard you. What does she have?"

"Some sort of muscle relaxer from Craig's grandfather's house."

Munch stood up, " Olivia, you sly fox. Captain, you can't ignore this."

Cragen wiped a hand down his face in frustration. He really wanted to agree with Olivia. She and Elliot were more to him then good detectives. He lifted his head and looked at Craig's desk. "Where is Craig?"

"He's taking a long lunch at the Café Aroma. He says they have excellent tuna fish sandwiches. Fish once a day keeps the cancer away." Munch said with his best Craig impersonation.

Cragen looked at the blue warrant, " Ok go search his stuff, but I'm calling the other precinct. Their detectives should be handling this."

Fin jumped for the locker. They opened it to find a bagged lunch, a trivia video game, and a picture of Olivia that he took from his camera phone. "Looks like Craig has a little crush. Here's to you Mrs. Robinson."

Munch grabbed the photo, "Let's keep that to ourselves. No need to alarm Liv even further then we need to." He dropped the photo in a case box.

"Not much in here." Fin said as he looked at his partner. "To the squad car?"

"Onward."

Scene

Fin and Munch arrived at his duplex shortly afterwards. They opened the door to find a picture perfect apartment.

"Damn, is he compulsive or am I just a disgusting pig?" Fin said.

"Both." Munch replied. They started by looking in all of the cupboards including the refrigerator. Munch picked up one of his shoes, "Fin, these boots have a fair amount of mud on them."

"Bag it."

Fin dug into the jacket hanging in the hallway closet "Bingo." In the pocket of a black coat he found a syringe and a small bottle of clear liquid.

Scene

Back at the precinct Olivia walked in to find the squad room empty. She knocked on the Captain's door.

"Yeah." He said through the pain.

"It's Olivia. Can we talk?"

"Come in."

She opened the door. "I'm sorry. I was out of place."

"No, Liv. I should have done the same thing. Elliot needs us and we're all sitting around waiting for a miracle to happen. You're the only one who hasn't given up. I respect that about you. You're a loyal friend."

"Thanks Captain. You know I'd do it for you too."

"That's good to know."

"Where is everybody?"

"Bringing back a syringe and some muscle relaxer from Craig's apartment."

She smiled. " I knew you couldn't give up."

Scene

Olivia paced the office waiting for Craig to come back from his break. Fin and Munch sat at their desk making phone calls and looking busy. Craig came through the door.

"Craig." Olivia said with a smile.

"Ms. Benson. I thought you were told to take the day off?"

"I came back to apologize. I've been a little stressed. I took a break and realized I was out of line. The Captain wants you to start on the perp we have waiting in the interrogation room."

Craig was about to sit but his whole body perked up at what Olivia had to say, "Me? So I'm back on?"

"Yeah, you better get in there before we lose his confession."

Craig walked in the room and turned around when he saw that no one was in the room. Olivia blocked the doorway.

"What's going on?" Craig asked.

"That's what I'd like to know. Why don't you tell me why Fin and Munch found these in your apartment?" She threw the siring and the muscle relaxer on the table.

"You went in my apartment? You can't just do that without probable cause."

"Your grandfather is a nice guy. He let me have the bottle you took that from. And I know that you took it from that bottle because not only matches the stuff we foun din your coat pocket but your fingerprints are all over it."

"Olivia, I help my grandfather with the horses all of the time. I probably just left them in my pocket the last time I used it."

"Your grandfather told me that you haven't visited him in over a month. Where did you get that cut on your hand?"

"My grandfather's senile. He can't remember what his last name is."

"He seemed to know his last name just fine today when I talked to him. And how about the mud on these boots, Craig?"

"What about it?"

She took the boot and held it up for him to see, "That's an orangish color mud, just like the dirt we found at the school. When the lab is finished placing it to our location you're gonna need a pretty sweet deal if you ever want to see the light of day again."

" I want a lawyer. I'm not answering one more question. Get me a lawyer, now."

Olivia pushed him onto the chair. She bent over him and got up in his face. "You better have an excellent lawyer, Garner. I've been coming up with new evidence all day and when I get started I don't stop. Why'd you do it Craig?" He didn't answer her and she put on a seductive voice to get him to open up. "You know, I was starting to think you were a good guy. Someone I'd like to bring onto this team permanently."

"You sure have a funny way of showing it."

"What do you mean?"

He turned his head away form her gaze and whined like a little boy. "You can't trick me like this. I said I wanted a lawyer."

"I think you're acting classes just ran out, Craig. Why would I need to trick you if you didn't have anything to hide?" She was about to sit on the table and the gold chain fell to the outside of her shirt. The ring beamed at Craig. Grabbed the necklace and shoved it down her shirt.

"Nice diamonds. Where'd you get those?" Craig said with a smile.

Olivia stood up. "Don't change the subject smart ass."

Craig stood up next to her. "Those are some harsh words. What would your partner have to say about that?"

She backed up, "What do you have against Elliot, Craig?"

He stepped closer to her, "I don't know what you're talking about Olivia."

She walked around the table with her arms crossed. "Are you jealous, Craig? You know what I'm talking about. You know a lot of things don't you?"

Craig followed her and got close to her ear. "I know your secret, Olivia Benson. And if you think that I'm not going to use it against you in the courtroom, you better think again."

Olivia boiled with anger. She turned and left the room slamming the door behind her. "Get him a lawyer."

Cragen looked at Olivia, "What was that all about?"

"He's a nut job."

Cragen didn't know what to say. He could see there was more going on then she was stating, but he wasn't sure he wanted to know the details.

Munch broke the tension as he pushed past Cragen, "I think we should make him wait for the 61st precinct. Since this is their case. How long do you think they'll make him wait? 4…5 hours?" He turned to Olivia and gestured for her to leave the room with him.

Scene

Chung Chung 

Trial Part 64

Alex Cabat sat on the left side of the courtroom as Craig Garner and his lawyer; Milton Schoenfeld entered the doors and sat on the right side. Judge Elizabeth Donnelly entered the courtroom and the officer to her left stood, "All rise."

"You may be seated." Donnelly said as she fixed her glasses and sat like a permanent board was attached to her spin. "I see we're reopening this case. Alex, welcome back."

"Thank you, your honor."

"Can I have the defendant take the stand?"

Milton stood to face the judge, "Your honor, I'd like to call Vanessa Cleaver to the stand."

A young woman about 20 years old walked to the bench. Milton rubbed his chin and started the trial. "Vanessa, do you recognize my client seated over there?"

She looked at Craig and bashfully smiled, "Yes, he comes to the bar that I work at."

"Was he there last Friday?"

"Yes. He's a regular."

"How long did he stay on Friday?"

"He stayed the same as usual from 8pm until 2am. Most of my customers don't usually stay at the tables that long, but Mr. Garner likes to sit at the same table and order the same thing all night long. Diet coke."

"No further questions, your honor."

Alex stood and made her way to the stand, "What kind of bar do you work in, Vanessa?"

"I work at a place called The Spot. It's a nightclub with a bar."

"How busy were you that night?"

"Oh, it was very busy. I could barely keep up with the drinks."

"So you could have missed Mr. Garner leaving for an hour or so and then coming back?"

Milton stood, "Objection. Leading the witness."

"Sustained. Answer the question."

Vanessa thought about it for a moment, "I suppose I could have. I do remember seeing his table empty at one point in the night. I thought he could have been in the bathroom or dancing. Most tables go in and out of the bar section to dance. I don't really remember how long he was gone."

"No further questions, your honor." Alex strode back to her seat and Vanessa left the bench.

Judge Donnelly looked at the defense. "Do you have any further witnesses, defendant?"

Milton shook his head, "Not at this time your honor."

"Do the people have anyone to call to the stand?"

Alex stood forward, "Yes, I'd like to call Detective Elliot Stabler to the stand."

Chung Chung 

Elliot sat on the bench in the courtroom. He finished telling his side of the story and starred out into the room. His four children and Kathy sat in the front seats. Their heads were low and attentive. Olivia was nowhere to be found. Alex was through with her questions and she took her seat behind the table on the left side of the room.

Craig and his Lawyer sat on the right side. Craig never took his eyes from Elliot's face. It was as if he got a cheap thrill from the vein pulsating on Elliot's forehead. Milton Schoenfeld made his way towards Elliot. He stopped and smiled. "Detective, can you tell me why Renee Janson had your DNA on her?"

"Objection, your honor. My client was cleared of that evidence."

Milton pushed the argument, "Yes, your honor, but the case has been reopened making the evidence questionable again."

"Proceed." Donnelly barked from her thrown.

Elliot looked at the doors for Olivia, "I don't know how my DNA got on Renee Janson."

"You don't know because you blacked out, or you don't know because you don't want to admit to what you did?"

Elliot sighed through his nose. "I don't know how it got there because I didn't put it there."

"Where were you the night of Renee's attack?"

"I was sleeping in my bed."

"Were you alone?"

Elliot paused. He had never lied on the bench before. Olivia wasn't even there to help make it easier. "Yes."

"The statements say that your sperm sample was made in a condom just hours before it was placed on the victim. Are you sure you weren't alone?"

Alex stood up, "Objection. Relevance?"

"Sustained.", said Donnelly.

Milton stood focused on Elliot's face. Elliot looked at his children and quickly looked away. "I…I masturbate in condoms."

Kathy wrinkled her face with question in her eyes. She knew he was lying.

Alex walked towards the judge. "Your honor, what does this have to do with the attacks?"

The judge looked at Milton, "Move on to the next question please."

"How do you explain the bloody fingerprints found on Patricia Corbin?"

" I told you I was hit on the head. I don't know how they got on the girl. I never consciously touched her. Why don't you ask your client that question?" Elliot was getting angry.

"Because my client wasn't at the scene of the crime. You on the other hand have several huge pieces of evidence connecting you to these crimes, Detective Stabler. Why don't you tell me where you got the knife that you used to slice open those girls? Or maybe you could tell us why you had an explosive device in your pocket."

Elliot got up in Milton's face, "Because I was framed."

Alex cut in before things got too ugly, "You honor, the defendant is badgering my client."

Donnelly peered over her glasses, "Mr. Schoenfeld, make your point."

Milton paced the floor for a moment and then starred Elliot in the eye. "You say you were framed. Is that right?"

"Yes."

"How do we know you aren't framing my client?"

"I'm not framing your client. I'm telling you the facts. That's something Mr. Garner should be familiar with, since he's so good at making them up."

"Why do you think my client framed you?"

"New evidence links your client to the victims attacks."

Milton nodded, "Yes, and Detective Benson was the one who found this evidence, correct?"

"Yes."

"What's your relationship like with Detective Benson?"

Alex spoke up, "Relevance."

"Sustained." Donnelly replied.

Elliot's pulsed quickened. "Detective Benson and I have been partners for 8 years."

The courtroom door opened. Olivia and a man and woman walked through and sat near the back. Olivia held a file in her hand. Elliot's insides grounded themselves at the sight of her face. Milton continued the trial.

"So you two are a pretty tight team. I'm sure you spend more time with her then you do your own family."

Elliot glanced at Kathy, "Yes."

"Would you put your life on the line for her?"

"I have and would."

"What about your job?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Would you go out of your way to help her out of a bad situation even if it meant risking your job?"

"Objection! Forcing a situation." Alex cried.

"Get to your point Mr. Schoenfeld."

Milton stuck out his finger giving the judge a one second signal. "I went through your records, Detective. It looks to me like you and Benson have been bending rules for quite some time. Why should we believe that she isn't making the new evidence appear on my client to cover for you?"

Elliot looked right at her as he spoke. "Olivia would never do that. She's an honest detective. Any negative records on our behavior were justified or we would have been fired."

"Have you ever lied to help your partner out?"

"No." The lie burned in his guilty conscience.

"Have you ever had a romantic relationship with each other?"

"Objection!" Alex cried as she banged the table.

The judge pointed her gavel at Milton. "I agree. Mr. Schoenfeld move on to something substantial or I'll have to remove you from my courtroom."

"No further questions, your honor." Milton took his seat.

"Can I have the defendant take the stand?" said Judge Donnelly.

Elliot was cuffed and removed from the courtroom. Olivia and the other two detectives stood up and walked up to Alex. She handed the file that she carried to Alex.

Alex looked up at the three of them. "What's all of this? Who are these people?"

Olivia spoke lightly to Alex, "This is Detective Palmer and Detective Gordon from the 61st Precinct. We found more evidence that locks your case against Garner." Alex took the files and the three detectives turned back to their seats. Elliot's kids waved and smiled at Olivia as she walked past them.

Judge Donnelly started banging her gavel at Alex and the detectives, "Miss Cabat is there a reason why you're having a meeting in my courtroom without me?"

Alex presented the file to the Judge. "Judge Donnelly, I have new evidence that further connects the defendant to the victims."

Donnelly held out her hand, "Let me see it." She looked over the papers. "A dirty glove and some bank statements. Explain."

"The glove has Patricia Corbin's blood all over it and Garner's blood DNA on the inside of it. SCU found it in a trash can a block away from the school. The bank statements belong to Mr. Garner and Eric Stone. Eric Stone was the guy shot the night of the attack. We believe Mr. Garner paid him to be an accomplice."

"How so?"

"There's a few thousand dollars missing from Mr. Garner's account two days before Renee Janson's attack. If you look at Eric Stone's account a cash deposit of the same amount was added just one hour after that. Eric Stone was also an exact match to our sketch and we have a witness that has confirmed Eric Stone as the guy in the baseball cap."

Milton stood next to Alex fuming, "Your honor, I need a recess to go over this evidence with my client."

"Recess granted. Be in my office in twenty minutes." Donnelly said as she stood up, addressed the court, and left he room.

Scene

Both lawyers convened in the Judges chambers shortly afterward.

Milton sat in front of the judge. "My client wants a deal."

Alex waved her head to the side, "No deal. There's more then enough evidence here. I'll take my chances in front of the Jury."

Milton pushed the issue. "One count of homicide and extra time for framing a detective."

"What about the other two girls and Eric Stone? No deal."

Donnelly stepped in. "Alex, he would be in jail for 35 years on those charges. You're other evidence is lame if that. I'd go with the deal."

"Three counts of homicide. That's my final bargain plea."

Milton looked at the Judge. She answered his silence with a wave of her hand and women's rights attitude, "You heard the woman. Take it or leave it. You have10 minutes to convince your client that's the best deal he's going to get. I'll see you in the courtroom."

Scene

Olivia sat outside of the courtroom with her head in her hands. Detectives Palmer and Gordon stood close by arguing an issue they were having with another case. Palmer was a tall man with thick black hair and a nice build. Gordon was a beautiful African American woman with long braided hair. She was average height, in shape, and full of passion for the job. She jabbed at her partner, "You mean to tell me that after all the years I've spent working with you, you're going to believe some guy with a history for beating his wife over me?"

Palmer, who was leaning on the wall, pushed off, and got in her face. "Gordon, you're taking this too personally. I believe him because his wife is a lying bitch. The woman would take him to the grave and back if she could."

"And how do you know that? Are you some kind of mind reader? There's no evidence that she's lying."

Olivia listened to them and was reminded of Elliot. She looked up and watched them banter back and forth. They were so heated in the moment that they were oblivious to the world around them. Gordon caught Olivia starring and pushed Palmer to the side. "Oh just shut up. I'm done with you. Olivia, you ok? You look like you just saw a ghost. "

She smiled. "I'm fine."

Palmer added his two cents, "If she could learn to control her temper we wouldn't have to disagree to agree."

"I'm quite familiar with the argument." She said with a wry facial expression.

Gordon slapped him on the arm with fury in her eyes. Palmer laughed, "How about I'll go get all of us some coffee."

"Good idea, Captain Starbuck." Gordon scuffed with a grin.

Alicia Gordon sat next to Olivia on the bench. "You gotta be going out of you mind. I consider myself a patient person but if I found out Palmer raped and murdered three women I'm not sure I could get up and go back to work."

"He didn't do it.", she said matter-of-factly.

"That's right. No, he didn't do it, but I'm just saying if he did and I was on the other side of the relationship, I mean, the partnership, I would have to reconsider every person I've ever trusted."

Olivia looked up at Alicia who was seriously looking back at her. "How long have you and Palmer been together?"

"Rick and I have been together for 5 years. Hell, I can't even imagine doing this job without him. Having this job is like a bad math equation sometimes. Everything has to be balanced. Sometimes the reasons for balance don't even make sense, but you do it anyway."

Olivia looked down at her shoes, "Yeah, well, when you find that balance give me a call."

Alicia laughed and patted Olivia on the back. "I like you, girl. You're one hard ass woman. You're partner is very lucky. I hope it all works out."

"Thanks."

Alex pushed open the door to the courtroom and Olivia shot up like a bolt.

"The trail is over."

Scene

The room outside of the prison cells stank of a dirty mop. Olivia waited in anticipation watching the light bulb blink above her head. A guard opened the door and Elliot came out uncuffed and in his street clothes. Olivia ran to him and they hugged so tightly she thought her ribs would collapse. Elliot released the air from his lungs.

They starred at each other with a half smile. Olivia broke his gaze with a nod towards the door. "You have four very excited young adults waiting for you in the hallway."

He walked through the metal doors and Maureen, Kathleen, Dickie, and Elizabeth charged him with hugs and kisses. Olivia watched and fell into a haze.

Dickie jumped up and down. "Dad. Dad, Olivia _is_ a superhero. She came into the courtroom and caught the bad guy. She just swooped in with her detective powers and 30 minutes later, BOOM, case closed. I knew you didn't do it."

Elliot laughed. Olivia grinned at the whole lot of them. "What can I say, that gym membership has really paid off."

Elliot looked around and didn't see Kathy. "Where's your mom?"

Kathleen answered, "She's with Ted, her new boyfriend." Kathleen said boyfriend like it was a disease.

Maureen looked at Olivia. "Livi, brought us."

Elliot was glad to see that Maureen and Olivia were getting along. He looked at Olivia and then back at his children.  
"You guys hungry? Let's go celebrate." He turned to Olivia. "Come on Superwoman. I need you to save my empty stomach from starvation."

Olivia laughed. "Now that sounds like a job I can handle. You have a whole crew of people waiting for you down at Mahoney's."

"Then I guess we're going to Mahoney's." Elliot cried.

Olivia started to feel like she was part of the family. Elliot grabbed her hand as all six of them walked down the street towards Mahoney's bar and grill. The kids walked in front of them and quarreled the whole way. Olivia and Elliot teased each other back and forth about the length of time she took getting him out of jail. They laughed and took in every moment of the playful conversation. Olivia remembered the ring and touched it under her shirt. "Elliot, I got the box from your apartment." She pulled the necklace out or her shirt and smiled. "It's beautiful. I've never-"

Elliot stopped her. He pulled her hair to the side and unlatched the necklace. "It doesn't belong there." He softly said to her. "I'm sorry I didn't get to do this the right way. I feel like everything we've had together has been out of tradition. Maybe that's the way things are supposed to be. Maybe in order to get something right you have to mess everything up." Olivia watched him kneel to the ground. He grabbed her hands. "You have been more than a partner to me for a long time. I was blind to ignore that. You told me once that I was the only man that could ever put up with you, but really you're the only woman that can put up with me. Olivia Benson, I am a new man and I want to share this world with only one woman. Will you marry me?"

Elliot's kids stood 10 feet in front of them watching their father pure his heart out in the middle of New York City. It was a side of him they'd never seen before.

Olivia could feel the tears swelling in her eyes. She really hated to cry. Especially when it felt cliché. She smiled and a fat tear rolled uncontrollably down her cheek. She started to laugh and Elliot smiled at her. "Yes, Elliot Stabler, I will marry you."

The kids cheered and whistled as Elliot embraced Olivia and kissed her over and over again.

Dickie grabbed the pole holding a sign up and swung around it shouting. "Yeee Haw. I'm gonna have a super mom."

Maureen shouted. "Get a room you two. That's just disgusting."

Olivia and Elliot ran towards them to shut them up and give them a hug. They all proceeded down the sidewalk laughing and talking over top of each other. The hidden lives they once lived were about to blossom in the smelly spring city air.

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End file.
